


Life DeVoid of Hope

by madeofheart (nerdofthenile)



Series: Oppositestuck [6]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abuse, Abusive Relationships, Blood, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Everyone Needs A Hug, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Heartbreak, How Do I Tag, Kisses, Language, Lots of those!, Murder, Murderstuck arcs, Nothing graphic literally just friendly verbal cultural exchange about sex, Oppositestuck, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Past Violence, Punching, Quadrant Vacillation, Sex Talk, Threats of Violence, Unconciousness, Unrequited Crush, Verbal Abuse, Violence, Wounds, how do I summary
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2018-11-17 11:04:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 19
Words: 27,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11274144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdofthenile/pseuds/madeofheart
Summary: Twelve trolls walk onto a rock hurtling through space....It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke.You really hope that's what this all turns out to be. A bad joke.(Oppositestuck, taking place on the meteor!)





	1. Rock of the Free, Home of the Stupid

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here we go, some biz on the Meteor! I'm pumped to write this, as thinking about the Meteor was what prompted me to look at Oppositestuck in the first place. This will have chapters, and I hope to update as much as I can. I don't know if I'll have a real schedule though... 
> 
> Anyways, Thank you for reading whatever this is, and I hope you enjoy!

Ah, life was simply in love with you, wasn’t it?

 

Your name is FEFERI PEIXES, and some random flying demon meowbeast had just managed to rip you and your friends from the rewards of your Sgrub gaming session and onto some trashed meteor floating through space. Without a single hint of where you were headed. 

 

You were totally psyched. 

 

This was heavy sarcasm. 

 

Everyone had taken a few hours, under your careful instruction of course, to explore what would be your new home for who knew how long. While everyone else explored, you took some time to boot up the husktops you had found in what was probably the main lab of the meteor. It was simple enough to get Trollian running on all of them. Now you waited in the lab, pressing random keys on a surprisingly slick keyboard, waiting for people to show up again. 

 

Unfortunately, someone eventually did. 

 

“This place is a dump,” Nepeta said like you should have known that all your life as she struts back into the room. 

 

You roll your eyes. “Okay, that’s wonderful. I am so glad that you were able to come back with all the information of a nut creature.”

 

“Don’t mock me.”

 

“I’ll mock whoever I want, kitten, this is a free space rock.”

 

“Do not call me kitten,” she growled, “and this space rock is not free. And you know this.”

 

The funny thing about Nepeta was that she was everything a highblood killer should be: snobby, unfeeling, probably bloodthirsty all the time. But she was just… 

 

So  _ short.  _

 

It made her look less menacing than she actually was.

 

“Who said this wasn’t a free space rock?” You question her. 

 

“You know it’s not,” she walks over to the second husktop to your left and slouches down into the chair next to it, “we are not  _ free.  _ Not with whatever those  _ things  _ are, floating around now. Or with all of us in the same damn hive.”

 

“Does a meteor even count as a hive?” You ask aloud. The words are more of a distraction from mentioning the creature that chased you here. You don’t want to think about the meow demon that destroyed your chances at making a new world of your own, a paradise, one without all the threats and the drones. One where you all could live alone or together and not have to fight to survive.

 

One where you didn’t have to hide your fuchsia blood color. 

 

One where Eridan could be happy. 

 

“And we all know,” Nepeta crosses her legs and stretches her arms over her head, her crop top exposing her midriff, “that we all are going to get fed up with each other soon enough? When will we all start slashing at each other? When will we all give in to… Alternian instinct, hm?”

 

You stop fiddling with the keyboard, the weight of what she said sinking in. 

 

“We won’t let it,” you respond after a minute of processing that. 

 

“And who is ‘we’?” Nepeta purred. 

 

You swallow thickly, letting saliva moisten your drying throat. Your neck gills try to help your airway, but they end up helplessly flapping in the air. “Any of us.”

 

Nepeta chuckles like you just made a joke about smushing wigglers with a hammer. “ ‘Any of us’. Any of us, she says.” She chuckles a bit more before going quiet. Silence descends on the two of you, save for the whirring of what must be distant fans, or generators, or something. This wasn’t a laboratory built by the Empire, at least not to your knowledge. So it wouldn’t be running on the underwater machinery that powered your planet. It also polluted the seas and would kill seadwellers daily. There were rumors that the machines themselves were powered by the bodies of voodoo heretics, because their magic made their corpses last longer and were very magically potent. Your thoughts swirled in your head in time with the whirling noises. 

 

“You do have a kill count, you know.”

 

You flinch as her grating words slice through the silence that had built up. 

 

“I’m not the only one,” you shoot back, glaring at her through your goggles.

 

“I did it for the good of the Empire, and because there was a good chance Karkat would have killed me if I didn’t.” The way she said “Karkat” was similar to the way drunk sailors talked about their past captains. Like it was sour enough to even speak his name. “I didn’t do it out of my weird taste for troll flesh.”

 

You jump from your seat and are looming over her in seconds, clamping your fronds down on either side of her and huffing air into her stupid face. “I,” you grit out, “had no other choice. It was either that, or starve--”

 

“And other seadwellers found other ways,” Nepeta rolled her eyes, “you act like you weren’t the only troll out there with a neglectful lusus. You could have eaten like, I dunno, seaweed or something? Coral? Sea lusii?”

 

“Why would I eat sea lusii.”

 

“Why would you eat a troll?”

 

“Because it was safer that way,” you tighten your grip on the chair as you speak, “because fighting anything else would have killed me. Because it was all I could do.”

 

“You had other options.” She stares into you, and for a moment, you think she sees through you. To your blood in your veins, the stuff that makes you a freak, unwanted in the Empire and in society, just a layer away from her. This close, and all it would take for her to know would be one wrong move, one wrong word. Only one. 

 

You pull away and look down on her instead. 

 

“You had other options,” she repeats, and you want to smack her smirk off her face, “and you didn’t take them. Admit it.”

 

You don’t respond because she’s right. You had other options. You tasted your first piece of troll meat when you were two sweeps, when you were close to starving and had desperately munched on a sailor’s corpse floating in the ocean. Your lusus wasn’t there to tell you not to. But there was kelp and coral reefs and small fish you could have gotten. You could have burrowed yourself under the ocean floor and eaten the small creatures in the sand like the crabs did.

 

But you didn’t. Because that one bite of troll flesh was all you needed. 

 

“Cannibal,” Nepeta scoffs at you as you slowly take your seat again. 

 

“Murderess,” you call her. 

 

She’s about to retort when you both hear the clips of high heels and the babble of discussion. You both turn to see your absolute least favorite trolls walk in. 

 

“OW!”

 

“Now tell me I’m right.”

 

“You AREN’T! Now sto-- OW!”

 

“Wrong answer, lowblood.”

 

You and Nepeta watch as Aradia comes in tugging Sollux by the ear. He is at least two units taller than her, but still is cowering to her will like a barkbeast with its tail between its legs. Aradia, meanwhile, looks like a puffed up featherbeast as she comes in with a swish of her hips, Sollux at her mercy. 

 

She sniffs and squints at you. “Feferi, tell him I’m right.”

 

Sollux looks at you. “She’s not.”

 

You sigh. 

 

“What are you two fighting about?” You ask. 

 

Aradia tugs at him again, getting a yelp out of Sollux before she speaks. “This meteor has at least 300 blocks. He’s saying it doesn’t. Tell him I’m right.”

 

“It’s bigger!” Sollux whines.

 

“Why do either of you  _ care?” _ You lean back and drum your fronds against the counter holding all the husktops. 

 

Aradia’s eyebrows go up and her mouth hangs open just the tiniest bit, her cheeks flushing the slightest bit maroon. Her pupils dilate. “ _ Care? _ Why do I  _ care? _ Because I’m right and he’s wrong! And he’s being a crappy loser about it!” She whacks the yellowblood on the head for good measure. 

 

“You said that like I just insulted your lusus,” you groan. 

 

“Maybe you did,” she huffs. “You all suck.”

 

“You suck,” Sollux cries, trying to get his ear free. “Let go!”

 

“Ay, we’re already killing each other! What did I tell you.”

 

“You tell me a lot of things that I decide to block out. You know. Because I’m  _ fucking deaf.” _

 

You turned to the doorway and wow, this fruity rumpus was just getting better and better. The one and only Tavros Nitram came in looking like he already owned all your souls (probably did on some level), followed by Equius, who walked in like he owned all your reputations (probably did on some level). Tavros’s metal peg leg glinted in the light of the lab. You made that leg. You made his eye too, with the three extra pupils to make it look like his fourfold eye. You’d never tell, but you thought the leg and eye were some of your best works. 

 

Of course, you didn’t have a choice to make them, considering Tavros threatened to kill off your friends if you didn’t. But that was besides the point. 

 

They walked in and Tavros stood by Aradia, leaning into his hip and smiling like the devil. “What did he do this time?”

 

“He’s just wrong,” Aradia said, giving Sollux another sharp tug.

 

“Sollux, stop being wrong,” Tavros cocks his head at him, “you're taking up valuable space.”

 

Sollux sputtered, “How does being stupid take up valuable space at a--”

 

“Uh-uh-uuuh, taking up valuable space,” Tavros cooed, going over to ruffle Sollux’s hair and shoving him at Aradia, who pushes him back. “Yeah, valuable space!”

 

“Don't hop on  _ my  _ chugging device, I coined that saying.” Tavros frowns at Aradia. 

 

“I'm not hopping on anyone's chugging device.”

 

“Yes you are, psychopath.”

 

“You're calling  _ me  _ the psychopath? Really?”

 

“Shut uuuuup, fuck,” Equius groaned, coming up to what had been your chair and claiming it as his own. “All you bulgelickers do is try to outdo each other in the large-ass span of--”

 

“Oh, shut it,” Nepeta snips.

 

Equius grins at her and only responds by sticking his tongue out.

 

They both flip each other off.

 

The next few minutes were passed waiting for everyone to reconvene and trying to keep Equius, Nepeta, Aradia, and Tavros from ripping each other to shreds, and trying to keep them all from ripping Sollux to shreds. As much as you'd like to not have to deal with Captor in any shape or form ever, if you wanted to get out of the mess you’d found yourself in, you needed everyone on this stupid rock to be in one piece. Mostly. 

 

After a bit, Kanaya stumbled in with a Faygo bottle in hand having found absolutely nothing of actual use. She said “Hi” before passing out on the floor. Literally none of you made a move to help her up. It took you five minutes to decide to pick her up and toss her into a chair on the further side of the room. No one had to trip on her, or smell her at all, right now. 

 

Of course, Vriska and Eridan came in together. As soon as they came in, Vriska has bolted to Aradia, spilling words like a waterfall. Eridan, meanwhile, leaned against the doorway with that silly smile he always wears when he’s proud of someone. He wears it every time he sees Vriska being social with other trolls. Seeing her achieve things like that is one of his biggest prides. The look makes his visual orbs take on that signature sparkle in nonexistent light, and his cheeks get all powdered with violet. He looks so serene, and his smile is open, perfect and beautiful, and you just….

 

His eyes drift over to where you lean at the counter. You whip your head away just in time. 

 

You catch Sollux looking at you instead. He’s free from Aradia now. His eyes are boring holes through your soul, and his mouth is a straight set line. He doesn’t move, he just stares. Fire dances in his pupils.

 

You know it is a silent threat. You also know that it’s empty mostly. Even if Eridan were to chose someone else for his red quadrant in the end, you both could never really hurt the other. That would just upset Eridan. And neither of you wanted that. 

 

Of course, that’s what you hope. 

 

Finally, Karkat and his entourage come in. The prince looked excited  for a prince who is stranded with a bunch of other trolls on a rock hurtling through space. His moirail and matesprit, meanwhile, had facial expressions that looked excited to steer the meteor into oblivion. 

 

Terezi was promptly dragged into conversation by Vriska. 

 

You couldn’t tell if the look Tavros and Gamzee exchanged was a threatening look or pitch respiteblock eyes. You didn’t want to know. 

 

With everyone now in the same room, it was time to get some insight on this mess. “Everyone,” you shout, “shut up!”

 

Everyone did. And looked at you. Perfect. 

 

“So,” you hum, “what is this rock like? Did we get anything useful from romping around this hunk of junk?”

 

Vriska jumps up and down a little. It takes you a second to realize this was her way of “raising her hand” without actually being able to physically do that. You raise an eyebrow at her. 

 

“There are a bunch of b-blocks,” she spits out, “a bunch of them lo-look like st-storage blocks, b-but th-there a-are some that are for gener-erators and stuff.”

 

Eridan adds, “Those are mostly on the farther beaches of the meteor, though.” His voice sounds like molten silver. 

 

Vriska nods in agreement with him, “Like, r-really far. Far from here. Th-this room, I mean.”

 

Tavros rolls his working eye. “The stutter, seriously? Quit the god-awful stutter. You’re even more of a wiggler with it.”

 

Vriska’s excitement dims. Eridan, though, takes his passive sort of action by pushing himself from the doorway and coming to her side. They’re pale, paler than pale can be described as, and you want him red, but you can’t help but feel a little jealous. You wanted affection like that from him as well. It’s not like he doesn’t like you at all, you guys are “best fronds for life”, but that’s different from being in one of his quadrants. Especially the red one.

 

Him being at Vriska’s side, though, is enough of a warning to talk Tavros down. Tavros has messed with all of you, but he’s never messed with Eridan. Probably because he’d never get a good reaction from that. 

 

“There’s a nutrition block,” Equius says, “if, you know, we all don’t wanna fucking starve to death on a rock in space.”

 

“That’s good,” Nepeta comments with sticky sweet sarcasm, “I thought we’d have to start eating each other.”

 

Her gaze is totally on you, as is a few others probably, but you train your focus on Equius instead. You can’t see his eyes past his pitch dark shades, so you can’t tell if he’s eye-shaming you or not. You don’t think he is. He’s probably giving looks to Nepeta because he didn’t like how she put her two-currencies into the conversation. 

 

“Do any of the storage areas have supplies and stuff?” Sollux asks, breaking the tension brewing between the oliveblood and the blueblood in the corner. 

 

He was probably thinking Eridan would answer, smug bastard, but instead he got Vriska jumping in to answer with the energy of a sugar-rush grub. “Yeah, lots,” she chirped, “lots o-of stuff. We m-might b-be able to use a lot of i-it!”

 

“Use it to…?” Aradia prompted. 

 

“Make respiteblocks,” Eridan says, taking Vriska by the waist and twirling her (you could see your jealousy reflected in Sollux’s eyes), “we don’t know how long we will be staying here, so we shoald all have proper blocks with recuperacoons and the works!”

 

“We won’t be staying here long,” Nepeta shrugged her shoulders, “so I don’t see the point.”

 

“We might,” Aradia turned to her, “we don’t know. No one does.”

 

You look up at the ceiling, seeing the pipes and the wires and the thick tubing of the vents twining around. “Could be here for a week,” you think aloud, “could be here for a sweep. Maybe two. Maybe we’ll be stuck here the rest of our lives. We really don’t know.”

 

Everyone falls silent after that. The whirring of what you have decided must be the generators Vriska had mentioned invaded the lab. 

 

“You all are such party poopers,” Tavros whined, “lighten up! We’re gonna have soooo much fun together for what could be potentially sweeps, riiiight? What could go wrong!”

 

“Anything,” Equius groans, “everything. Someone could cut off my feet and jab out my visual orbs so I wouldn’t have to feel vibrations to make out what you fucking say all the time.” His eyebrows went up. “Hey, actually….”

 

Nepeta growled. “Oh, shut it, that was unnecessary.”

 

“You’re unnecessary,” Equius shot back at her.

 

“You two fight like wigglers,” Aradia crossed her arms over her chest. 

 

“Me? The wiggler?” Nepeta stood from her own chair and got right up into Aradia’s face. “Look who’s talking. Is this the farthest you’ve been outside your hive, Miss Hermit?”

 

Aradia flushed maroon. “Excuse me?”

 

“Pft, Miss Hermit?” Equius giggled, “please step up your name calling, because that was so lame.”

 

Nepeta whirled on him. “You’re lame!”

 

“You’re stupid.”

 

“You’re a piece of trash!”

 

“You’re the grub toast no one wants in the morning, and it just sits and gets staler and staler every passing day because no one wants to touch it.”

 

“What kind of insult was that?”

 

“Ahem.”

 

Oh Jegus. You spin your head around in tandem with Equius and Nepeta to the troll who had just cleared their throat. Karkat is smiling at everyone like a meowbeast who had just gotten a whole bowl of milk. 

 

“We should set up respiteblocks as soon as possible then,” he decides, “even if we stay on here for a short amount of time, we want to be in comfort for it. And in the end, if we are here for longer, we will have places to properly sleep and call our own.” He adjusts his hood. “Is there food in the nutrition block, Equius?”

 

Equius stiffly nodded. 

 

“Great. That won’t last us forever, but luckily, I found something of more use than that.” He grinned nice and big. “There is a alchemizing room down the hall. So anything we need that we can’t find, we can make ourselves! So that won’t be a problem. We should start work on everything now, though, so we can rest and make plans on what to do next.” He nods in agreement with himself. “No need to thank me. Does anyone have anything to add?”

 

No one could argue with that. No one breathed nor moved. Even Tavros was just standing there, sitting into his hip, looking thoughtfully on the whole spectacle. No one said a word.

 

“Good,” Karkat said, and turned to Gamzee. “Come with me. Let’s go scope out a good respiteblock.”

 

Gamzee, who had been standing like a statue that whole time, swiveled his head to look down at Karkat. His voice still had the accent you were familiar with.

 

“Yessir,” he answered. And they left. Terezi stayed near Vriska and Eridan. She didn’t look back at them. 

 

That whole relationship is… fishy. Karkat is fishy. But you can’t say anything, not with your blood color where it is and with Karkat being the Heir. 

 

“Welp,” Aradia shrugs, “we don’t have anything better to do.”

 

“True…” Vriska sighed. 

 

People left one by one. You stayed though. You stayed until it was you and Nepeta. 

 

“Are you ready to put up with all this?” You ask her. “We are gonna need this whole meteor to work together if we’re gonna figure this… this  _ carp  _ out.”

 

She looks at you scrutinizingly. “Did you just… did you just make a pun?”

 

You nod.

 

“Jegus,” she sighed, and then made a zig-zag motion horizontally with her hands. Eridan’s sign. “You are in so deep.”

 

“You’re avoiding my question,” you say, and you know you’ve pinned her because she squints at you. 

 

“The real question is,” she says, walking over to you and tipping your chin towards her with a glare in her eyes, “are you going to put up with this?”

 

She walks out with a swing to her hips and a smirk on her lips. This is going to be one long trip.


	2. Wrong Topic, Wrong Troll

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A troll goes to another troll for some romantic help.  
> The punchline is that this troll has some weird opinions on how to deal with romance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AH, here's another chapter! Hopefully its good, I've edited this like three times and still don't know if I am overall pleased with the results, but tell me what you think? Writing Karkat and Sollux is the best, Oppositestuck or not, so... 
> 
> I hope you enjoy, and thank you so much for reading!

“What I can’t understand,” Karkat says, “is why you came to me of all people to talk about your problems.”

 

You are SOLLUX CAPTOR, and you answer your friend-of-a-friend truthfully. “Because I think you’d know him best and wouldn’t immediately rip my vascular glands out through my nutritional valve if I mentioned him?”

 

Karkat laughs and walks over to you. “Oh, silly silly Captor,” he muses, taking your face in his hands and squishing your cheeks, “Vascular glands are ripped out from your airway pump, not your nutritional valve.”

 

You do not want to know why he knows that. 

 

“Also,” he hums, releasing your face and making his way over to his four legged holding platform where he sits down in his chair, “what do you mean, ‘know him best’? Who's the ‘him’ you're talking about?”

 

You take a deep breath. Maybe it's best to start at the beginning. “You’re like… really, really close with, um… Eridan, right?”

 

Karkat nods. “I guess.”

 

“Cool,” you say maybe a bit too quickly. “Because I need some, really really really good advice, and you’re the only one who I thought would be good to talk to. I’d go to Aradia or to Tavros, but they’re busy, and I’d go to Vriska but she is  _ with _ Eridan right now, and--”

 

“Get to the point,” Karkat tells you in his ever so chipper tone. 

 

“... and well? Feferi and Aradia would probably try to gut me if I asked, so I decided to come to you, even though we aren’t-- well, we don’t talk all that much. And look, you haven’t kicked me out yet! That’s good,” you smile, “that’s super good.”

 

Karkat drums his fronds against the table and reaches up to his cloak with the other hand. He unlatches it and lets it fall around him, floating to the ground. You can more clearly see him now, without the shadows of his hood blocking his expressions. His smile looks so genuine! You’re so happy that he wants to help you then. 

 

“You’re asking them about Eridan?” He asks you, “He is on the meteor with us, right? I don’t know what else you want answered.”

 

“Well see,” you begin, “you know he’s, um… kind of….”

 

“Hot? Endearing? So pathetically low on the spectrum it’s pitiful?”

 

“Wow, you know all the words that are gonna come out of my mouth, huh?”

 

“It’s very cliche.”

 

“Yeah,” you nod, “I pity him, a lot--”

 

“So Aradia’s told me.”

 

“She… told you?”

 

Karkat shakes his head and clicks his tongue. “You don’t really get it, that most of your ‘friends’ hate you, and will do anything to sabotage you.”

 

You decide to pretend that you didn’t hear what he had said and plow on. “I think I have competition though.”

 

Karkat’s eyes suddenly sparkled and his fronds stop drumming. “Competition?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“What makes you say that?”

 

“Feferi,” you bite out the name, “she looks at him like she already owns him-- which she doesn’t-- and she blushes at him more often than she likes to admit.”

 

Karkat cocks his head. “What color does she blush?”

 

You think. “It looks purple.”

 

Karkat nodded. “I was expecting that. She acts and talks like a lowblood.” His stare becomes thoughtful. “I wonder why she hides it? Why doesn't she at least wear it? She looks atrocious in grey.”

 

“I know, right?” You agree, “the whole ‘hemoanonymity’ thing is… weird.”

 

“It is,” Karkat tips his head up at the ceiling, “and you said that she is your competition?”

 

“Yeah. And she knows that I like him too, I think. She’s always mean, but she’s meaner when we’re talking about Eridan. Territorial, maybe is the word?”

 

“So,” Karkat pushes himself out of the chair and makes his way over to his recuperacoon. Is he about to go to sleep? Right now? This is an awkward place to end a conversation and an even weirder way to get out of it. But you should have known better. He goes around to the back of it, green sopor slime highlighting his hair (it's so ruffled, like a featherbeast), and bends down. 

 

He comes back up holding his scythe. 

 

He walks over to you one foot perfectly in front of the other. “So,” he repeats. You find yourself backing up, up, up, until you hit the wall. The door is too far away, it’s too far to run for it. But maybe if you believed hard enough you could! You just need to bolt for the knob--

 

Your positivity is cut short when you see the end of Karkat’s scythe right in between your eyes. It gleams, and you stay completely still. Even one move, and you are positive Karkat could slice you in two. You hope that if he did slice you up though, he’d leave you in threes. Two was just…wrong. 

 

“So,” Karkat repeats a third time in a harsh whisper, “so why not take out your competition?”

 

“Um…” you respond. 

 

“She’s just one troll,” Karkat tells you, “one measly, unimportant troll. And you just told me her blush was purple right? So her blood must be purple too, or some shade of it. She’s a useless lowblood, Sollux. Just another dot on the spectrum.”

 

“B-but,” you sputter, “we’re the o-only tro-trolls left! In this u-universe, anyways. With the game. Are you sure w-we should--”

 

“We should what, delay the inevitable?” Karkat giggles, “Death is inevitable. You’re so funny, Sollux. Killing her would be nothing, would maybe even do her a favor.”

 

You gulp and try a different approach. “That would do the opposite of what I’m trying t-to do. Eridan would never forgive me if I h-hurt her.”

 

“And why?”

 

“They’re friends,” you press yourself further into the wall away from the scythe’s tip. “Have been since they hatched.”

 

“And you and him?”

 

“We met around when Aradia made me meet y--” No, you shouldn't lie. You correct yourself. “When we met, I already knew him. I sent you a link to his Trollian, remember?”

 

“I remember,” Karkat nods. His scythe never moves in his grip. 

 

“Feferi though, she’s… she’s not nice,” you think aloud, “and Eridan, he’s….” Gosh, how did you describe Eridan? Wonderful? Kind? Adorabloodthirsty-- well no, he doesn't like bloodshed. Cute? “He’s….”

 

“A light stick in the wind,” Karkat suggests

 

You stare at him confused. “What?”

 

He chuckles like somebody died and he drops the scythe tip away from you. You start to breathe again. When did you start holding your breath? You can’t remember. 

 

Karkat steps away from you as he speaks. “You and me, we have sweeps left to discover things. And pity people, or hate them. But those seadwellers? They hardly have ten left. Maybe less. They are light sticks in the wind. They're unreliable and fragile and basically useless.”

 

You shake your head, well, as much as you dare. “The game--”

 

“Could simply dump us back to Alternia again,” Karkat finishes for you, “and we would not be immortal. Who knows? No one does. Personally,” he turns away from you, “I think you are wasting your time trying to tiptoe around the emotions of lowbloods who’ll be dead in a few sweeps.”

 

You lean against the wall, not knowing what to say. Karkat lays his scythe on the table like it’s made of precious gold and sits back down. Silence falls into the room. You are so used to silence, and what you wouldn’t give for a friend in your head. You want to break the quiet spell. But really, what can you say to that?

 

“I gave you my advice,” Karkat finally says, “and that advice is to do off with your competition. If it would upset the violetblood, then frame it on someone else. Simple as that.” His stare scrutinizes you. “And don’t come bothering me with your problems again.”

 

You think that was Karkat’s way of telling you to leave. Oh well. You were at least right when you thought he wouldn’t kick you out  _ right away.  _ Positivity. 

 

You walk out the door and slowly shut it behind you, making sure it doesn’t make a sound. 

 

You think about what Karkat said. Killing Feferi  _ would _ technically get rid of a lot of your problems. But you  _ know _ Eridan, and you know that if you hurt her, he’d never be able to look you in the ocular again. But Karkat had advised to pin it on someone else. Who would you pin something like murder on? Aradia? But no, then she’d be mad at you. You could say it was Karkat himself, but you had a bad feeling he’d twist your story back onto you just for the fun of it. 

 

Nepeta, though. Nepeta you could make up a believable story for and run with--

 

“Sollux?”

 

You jump and whirl around and come face to face with Terezi. Her arms are wrapped around her torso in a protective hug, a concerned look in her face. You notice that she put her hair up into a bun today. 

 

“Sollux,” she says again, “what are you doing staring at Karkat’s block?”

 

You startle and step away. “Sorry, I was just leaving,” you answer her. “Was asking Karkat some questions about some trolls, you know? Just, um… researching.” Hopefully you hadn’t said too much…?

 

She studies you, and her stare is so similar to Karkat’s in the way that you feel like if you moved, you would be culled on sight. Finally she sighs. 

 

“I think I can guess,” she shrugs, “the topic.”

 

You swallow.

 

Terezi shakes her head, earrings swinging as she goes around you to the door. “The ocean,” she says. 

 

“What?” You ask her. 

 

“The ocean,” she repeats, giving you a sideways glance, “any troll would know that the key to any seadweller’s pusher is the ocean. Alchemize him something sweet and ocean-related and you have a chance at making him swoon.”

 

You blink before you get what she’s saying. Wow, all you had to find was Terezi to figure this out? You should have gone to her ages ago! You grin, “Thanks!”

 

“Hurry, then,” she nods and knocks on Karkat’s door, “because honestly, Feferi is light sweeps ahead of you.”

 

You listen to her for once, not sticking around to see Karkat open his door for her. As you run off, you dwell on Karkat’s words.  _ Do off with the competition.  _

 

You know the right thing to do would be to throw the thought away completely. But you simply tuck it into the recesses of your well organized mind. Just in case. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy, already getting a little heated on that rock! Honestly, Karkat. Chill. 
> 
> Feel free to critique/comment!
> 
> Thank you again for reading, I hope you have a nice day!


	3. A Heart Full Of Actually Kind Of Awful Choices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You break from your reverie when Karkat says, “So what do you want to talk about?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so funny story guess who stayed up till 12:00 AM last night for no reason other than that they were in the writing ZONE and ended up writing and editing another chapter for no reason whatsoever?  
> MEEEEE~!  
> Don't worry, I ended up editing it again today, like the total garbage can I am. :)
> 
> Anyways, so here's another chapter!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoy!
> 
> ~~Please heed the tags!~~

Your name is TEREZI PYROPE and poor Sollux had literally no idea what he was up against as you watched him scamper down the hallway.

 

It wasn't that he wasn't attractive. It was that he had a lot of different priorities than people like Fefer. Feferi obviously wasn't  biased by blood. Sollux though, was one of those highbloods who would refer to you as a “lowblood” without a second thought. If Sollux wanted Eridan to even look his way in terms of quadrants, then he was going to have to kick it into a higher gear setting and try harder to not be snobby.

 

But enough with the Lets-See-Who-Can-Get-Into-Eridan-Ampora’s-Flushed-Quadrant race. You had some bigger issues here. 

 

That issue would be waiting at your matesprit’s door without having your pushed explode.

 

Well, you two had said you'd be matesprits later in life, had sealed that with a promise. But now that there were no drones… what could limit you?

 

Finally, Karkat opens his door to see you standing there. He smiles and you swear your pusher melts. “Hello Terezi,” he greets you, “what brings you over here, hm?”

 

You smirk at him. “Don't be cocky with me, Karkat. I just want to talk.”

 

He giggles and opens the door wider as he steps aside. “Sure you want to,” Karkat drawls, “and nothing else?”

 

You shake your head. “Not now, no.”

 

He wiggles an eyebrow at you and you can't help but laugh.

 

“Then take a seat and we can just ‘talk’,” he says, though you can hear the quotations around ‘talk’. You go and take a seat at his table, and he slips into his own. His hood is off, he must have taken it off before, and his scythe is lying on the table. You've always been secretly fascinated with this thing. Karkat isn't exactly tall, and this scythe has to be around maybe seven or eight foot units tall. The blade alone had to weigh double what Karkat did, and yet the prince wielded it so easily. You remember in a flash of memory the battle with the White King in your game session, how Karkat was so agile with his scythe to the point where it didn't look like a single thing could stop him…

 

You break from your reverie when Karkat says, “So what do you want to talk about?”

 

Oh yes, this. You take a deep breath. It was hard, asking someone out before and then having to ask them out again.Very few people understood. “So Karkat… your advisors, you know, they didn't make it from Alternia when it… was destroyed in the game, right?”

 

“Mmhm,” Karkat hummed.

 

“And well, they had put a lot of restrictions on your… relationships, I guess, right?”

 

“Mmhm.”

 

“And they told you… told you that you couldn't have a real concupiscent relationship until you were ready for the drones?”

 

“Mmhm. Which was ridiculous.”

 

“Yeah,” you nod in agreement, “it was. So you told me, about the whole, um… matespritship thing… that we would have to wait? Til you were allowed?”

 

“Mmhm.”

 

Your prince really wasn't getting it. So you decided with another sharp inhale that you need to ask him outright. He has to say yes, he already basically did, right? “Well,” you begin again, “I was wondering, now that you don't have advisors or drones… can we be, um… official? As in, official matesprits?”

 

He stares at you. You would feel a tiny bit uncomfortable if his eyes weren't so nice to look at. They glittered and the pupils were so big. He really was a handsome troll. You swallow and hold your eye contact with him though.

 

After what feels like a million sweeps, he smiles at you. “Of course,” he exclaims, shoulder going up a bit, “why didn't I think of that before? We can actually be official. Official as we please.” He leans on his elbows on the table. “And no one can tell us differently! Of course. We are official, starting now.”

 

Your pusher has actually melted now. Your breathing has never been so fast. He looks so  _ happy _ , happy to be with  _ you,  _ and oh, if that doesn't make flutterbeasts invade your nutritional sac. He's perfect, sitting there with that genuine smile, and now you can say you are his and he is yours. You can't help but giggle as you get up and go over to him.

 

You hug him.

 

You’ll think back on that moment and wonder if things would have turned out differently if you hadn't hugged him.

 

“I'm glad, you know?” You say as you hug him, “Just glad that you agreed. For a moment I thought that you wanted to wait still-- which would have been fine-- but I always thought that you would have said yes if those advisors hadn't stopped you. So I guess what I'm trying to say is thank goodness for--”

 

You weren't prepared for the push, and you certainly weren't prepared for the dilated pupils in his ocular orbs. You stumble back as his arms practically throw you away, and in that moment you are confused. What happened? Did you say something? You are frozen in place as you watch Karkat stand up and walk over to you.

 

You don't move. Maybe he just wanted to hug you standing…?

 

You aren't prepared. You just aren't prepared. 

 

The slap is well placed to your right cheek and you trip to the side from the sheer force of it. You blink, and you raise a hand to your cheek. The skin is raw, it stings when you touch it, there is no doubt in your mind that your skin is probably flushed teal in the shape of a hand. Karkat's hand.

 

“Karkat--” you start, but he isn't done.

 

Next comes a fist to your eye. You scream a bit at that one, but you can't make it loud. You've never been loud. You feel yourself crumble to the ground as pain stabs your right ocular and spreads over the rest of your face. Your hands hit the metal floor and pain rockets upwards as well. You let your head hang as you try to get over the pain. You've had worse, you've fought gigantic metal drones before when you stole from Imperial armories or storage blocks. 

 

But Karkat is highblood strong, organic, and your matesprit. The pain and confusion is much stronger now.

 

Karkat looms over you and yanks you up by your hair, which falls from its bun and starts to itch your neck. Your scramble to your knees to try and counteract the pain of getting your hair yanked.

 

Your pusher is thundering for different reasons when Karkat talks again.

 

“Never,” he hisses at you, “ _ ever  _ touch me without my say so again.” He drops you so suddenly and fresh pain spasms in your fronds as he continues. “You don't have the say here.  _ I  _ do.  _ I  _ am higher than you, so  _ I  _ get to say what happens in this quadrant.” He grabs you again, roughly, by the chin and tugs your head up. It's so quick you are sure you could hear the muscular stretches in your body break from the whiplash. “ **Do you understand me?** ”

 

For someone so small, his voice can be so loud.

 

“Yes,” you whimper, your voice much softer than you wanted it to be, “yes, I'm sorry….”

 

“What did you say?” Karkat bends down onto his knees in front of you, framing your face in his hands and. Pointing his claws at your skin. A threat. “What did you just say?”

 

You swallow and repeat, “I’m sorry….”

 

“You are sorry to who?”

 

“To you…?”

 

Two claws start to press in at your temples. “To who?” He asks again.

 

“To… to Karkat, who is still y--”

 

Other claws start to set in near your aural clots. “To  _ who?”  _ He asks again.

 

What else could he possibly want? You had no other name for him. 

 

One word flickered in your mind, a word you'd heard used for him before, though you couldn't place where you'd heard it, not in your pain addled mind.

 

“I'm sorry… sir?” 

 

He tightens his hold on your face for another second before he lets go. “Good girl,” he cooes at you, and you would be lying if you said you didn't feel sick at the way he said it. He walks away from you, leaving you doubled over on your knees on the floor. You hear the whoosh of something being swept off the floor-- his hood and cape-- and the clinking of metal and wood-- his scythe. He walks up to you again, and idly toes you where you're frozen on the floor.

 

“I'm glad we got to ‘talk’,” Karkat said in his cheery way, “I have to go now, but I'm sure we’ll talk again, right?”

 

You don't answer.

 

“ _ Right?” _

 

“Yes,” you choke out, “yes, sir.”

 

“Good,” Karkat nods and steps into the doorway. You don't turn to him, but you hear him stop. “I'll see you later,” he says it  _ so sweetly,  _ “as official matesprits now.”

 

And he's gone.

 

You sit there with the throbbing pain in your face and in your hands and knees and one thought races through your think pan.

 

What have you gotten yourself into?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might have another chapter up tomorrow actually, or I might not. I'm leaving for a bit this coming week and won't be online for about a month, so I'm trying to post a lot to make up for it? Should I have still stayed up so late? PROBABLY NOT!
> 
> Feel free to critique/comment!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you have a great day!


	4. Competition Duel Trouble: The Prequel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1) The stirrings of a rivalry born over a very cute seadweller. Somehow the reader is not surprised. 
> 
> 2) A challenge that fell on deaf ears and yet was accepted. 
> 
> 3) Possibilities.

Your name is FEFERI PEIXES again, and dammit you’re about to rip this troll’s nutritional processing systems from his puny flesh sack of a body. 

 

You have to say, you have no idea how Sollux the Complete Idiot of the Tech Realm managed to alchemize that in the few days and nights you’d been on the Meteor with fully functioning alchemizing machinery. He managed to make something hard to make, too: a conch shell. It’s bright pink, a mockery of the fuchsia in your veins, and you hate how it reminds you of your ocean hive. 

 

Eridan, though, must have thought it was the  _ best thing ever,  _ because when you watched Sollux gift it to him, he practically squealed and hugged the goldblood close. 

 

Jealousy, an ugly green color, swam in your vision. 

 

“AAAAAH Fef, Fef, look,” Eridan had come up to you literally thirty seconds later to show the conch to you. “Sol gave it to me! Isn’t it adorabubble? Look,” he circled it in his hands, “it’s all smooth and everyfin! Remember when we used to find these everywhere on Alternia?” he chuckled, a sweet sound, and went on, “I can’t believe Sol made this, I wonder what the code for it was? I gotta ask him.”

 

“Mmhm,” you weakly said. 

 

“Isn’t he sweet?” Eridan sighed, looking at the conch again. The jealousy bubbled and spread through your body. You hated how he said the word “sweet” when talking about that ignorant, health nut, sorry excuse of a troll. 

 

The worst part was that he was winning this fair and square. You wanted to puke. Preferably on Sollux. 

 

“Mmhm,” you managed to answer Eridan. 

 

Eridan studied you before giving you a softer smile. “I’m gonna put this in my block, then maybe we can catch up. I eel like we haven’t gotten round to talking much on this meteor.”

 

You nod, maybe a bit more hurriedly than you would have liked. “Sure.”

 

“Sea you then,” he grins and hurries off, conch shell in hand. 

 

You turn for your own respiteblock. You’ll “sea” him, alright. And you’ll woo that boy so much, Sollux’s stupid shell will be long forgotten.

 

~

 

“Ahahaha, what?”

 

“You heard me.”

 

You are EQUIUS ZAHHAK, and she has  _ got  _ to be kidding you. 

 

“A duel. With the deaf boy.”

 

“Mmhm.”

 

“You sure you aren’t fucking with me? I’m not reading your lips wrong?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“You,” you laugh, lounging on your desk chair, “would not last a second.”

 

“Other way around,” Nepeta hisses at you from your block’s entryway. “I could break you in half.”

 

You smirk at her. “You wanna bet?”

 

“I’m the one asking,” she scowls at you. You  _ do  _ kind of want to wipe that smugness off her face, like it’s annoying her that you’re being annoying. You can annoy whoever you want. She doesn’t get a say in what you do. No one does. 

 

You fake thinking it over, just to see how miffed she gets. When she looks like she’s about to strangle you if you don’t answer her, you give her what she wants. 

 

“Fine,” you roll your oculars behind your shades. “If you really want your ass whooped that much.”

 

Her scowl curves into a grin that you want to mop the floor with. “Meet me tomorrow. In the generator block. After everyone goes to their blocks for the night.”

 

You quirk an eyebrow at her. “Why not today?”

 

“You want me to beat you sooner than later?”

 

“I am so curious,” you purr at her, throwing yourself up to lean on your knees, “about what set off this sudden lust to try to fuck me up.”

 

“It’s not a lust, you creep,” she bites at you, and she really lets you read her lips create the word “creep”, “it’s a need. And you’re just being…” she grit her fangs, “... more of a douche than usual.”

 

You shrug. Fair. 

 

“Ok,” you grin at her. “Sounds like a fucking wonderful plan then.”

 

“Tomorrow?”

 

“Yep. I’ll let you call the shots here before I beat your ass to a pulp.”

 

She rolled her eyes at you. “See you then.”

 

You watch Nepeta leave. She is such a bitch. You turn your attention back to your husktop. 

 

“See you then,” you mutter. The only thing she’ll be seeing is stars when you win this “duel” of yours. It kind of came from out of the blue, but you’ll take it. Any chance to shove some well deserved smack-down into Nepeta’s respiratory tubing. You do wonder why she had to schedule that kind of shit, though. She could have surprised you, like a dashing lady troll, but you guess you’d have to make do with what you had. 

 

So you do what you usually do. 

 

You hop on Trollian to bug Tavros about it. 

 

~

 

“What are you doing?”

 

You think you heard a voice. Maybe. Dunno. 

 

“Hello? Can you even hear me?”

 

Do you really care though?

 

“Hello? Kanaya?”

 

Where have you heard that name before? Wait, wait a sec. You. That’s you!

 

Your name is KANAYA MARYAM (maybe? You think?) and you get your head up enough to see a figure standing in front of you. You can hardly make out the figure, but you can tell that it’s a shorter troll, maybe. Kind of? You can’t fully tell. Everything is happy blurry warmth and you want more Faygo and your fronds are kind of stickyyyyy but that’s alright. 

 

“Kanaya. Get up.”

 

But getting up is hard. 

 

“Getting up ishard,” you slur, “don’t really wannagetup.”

 

“I didn’t ask if you wanted to,” the troll said, “I told you to stand.”

 

“Dunwannnnnna,” is your eloquent answer. 

 

The troll blur sighs and you feel hands scooping you up. You wanna protest, but the only protest you can make is helplessly flailing your arms around. You think you hear a little  _ flup  _ of your hand hitting something though, so maybe you’re doing ok in the “put me down” campaign?

 

Mystery Troll Blur drops you. You think you feel pain after being dropped onto a hard floor. But you like the hard floor. So. 

 

“Kanaya, why are you so useless? You’re lucky you are exactly what I need, or else you’d have been culled a long long long time ago.”

 

The word  _ culled  _ echoes around in your pan long enough for you to blink a bit upwards at Mystery Troll Blur. Your vision clears just a bit, enough for you to make out a grey and red cloak and nubby horns. 

 

Oh, it’s Karkat. That explains a lot. 

 

“Oh, hi Karat,” you say, but his name feels funny on your tongue. Did you even say his name right? You try again. “Kaaart. Kakarat. Kakrat….”

 

“Karkat,” he tells you plainly, “My name is Karkat.”

 

“Yeah, that,” you nod before your pan gets too heavy and your head drops again. 

 

Karkat gives another sigh. “Kanaya, I’m not carrying you, I’m the Heir and you are barely making it into highblood rankings. I don’t work for you, it’s the other way around. Can you at least move your drunken self to the pile over there?”

 

Pile? There’s a pile in here? You flop over so you can look at the ceiling, and then try to pick your head up again to look around. You don’t know which room you’re in, but hey! Look at that. There  _ is  _ a pile in here! Who knew. 

 

“Whydyou wan me in the pile?” You ask him, sitting up with all your effort and doing a buttscooch over to the pile. 

 

“Feelings jam,” Karkat says nonchalantly. 

 

You stop buttscooching. “What?”

 

“Feelings. Jam. What part of what I’m saying is unclear?”

 

You stare at him. “But--”

 

“Do you  _ want  _ to pile or no?”

 

“Well, like,” you shrug, “I mean, I dunreally caaaaaare? Doesn’t mattertome, I’m ok with a jam anytime, but like….”

 

Karkat blinks at you, a soft smile plastered onto his face. If you were maybe more observant, you’d see how fake it really looked. “But what, Kanaya? We are great friends, of course, but I’m getting more and more impatient here.”

 

You try to find syllables to articulate what you want to say, but it’s kind of hard, especially because you think that cotton candy Faygo was starting to kick in now. Your entire body was floating on a sweet cloud of sweetness, and you lay back on the edge of the pile (you think it’s made of pillows) to let yourself be as lazy as the cotton candy taste in your mouth was. 

 

“Kanaya?” 

 

Oh, you kind of forgot Karkat was still there. 

 

“Hmph?” You asked.

 

“But  _ what,  _ Kanaya? You were talking and then you stopped.”

 

You were? Oh, you were!

 

“I’m upto jam, all day, erday, but like… dun you already gotta moirail?”

 

“Who, Gamzee?” Karkat asked, sitting next to you and taking off his cloak. 

 

“Yeah, that guy,” you say, because who has the time to actually say Gamzee’s whole name?

 

Karkat’s shape looked at you very calmly and said, “I don’t think he’d like what I’m about to say.”

 

“Soyou camehere?”

 

“Yeah. You also can’t remember which words you just said, so I know you definitely won’t repeat what I say to you to anyone. Because you can’t remember.”

 

You nod.

 

“So don’t tell anyone, especially Gamzee, because I do need to keep him around for a bit, for personal reasons.”

 

“Ok,” you answer. Who wants to fight when you feel so fuzzy and warm?

 

Karkat smiled. “Alright. I’m going to talk now.”

 

“Go for it,” you say, closing your eyes. 

 

Karkat lies down next to you and begins to speak. “I have a matesprit now, Kanaya. But I think she’s too weak. And I think I might now how to... toughen her up."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, so I'm not letting this die yet! Mwahahaha!
> 
> This was mostly just to get back into the swing of things and to set stuff up. I hope this is good??? I can't wait for some stuff I have planned to take place, so tell me what you think and if you have any suggestions, go ahead and drop them on me! I love hearing ideas!!
> 
> Feel free to critique/comment! (Especially critique on this one, not sure how well of an editing job I did)
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!! Have a great day!


	5. Competition Won

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feferi tries to get a little bit more into Eridan's flush. She instead got a heap full of feels.

You are FEFERI PEIXES, and ok, this whole wooing thing could have gone a liiiitle better.

 

In your rush to beat Sollux in this sorry little battle over Eridan, you had forgotten something important: you are actually the worst at making conversation. To add, you get super uncomfortable in awkward silences, to the point where it’s visible on your face.

 

Of course, this is Eridan, you’ve known each other for sweeps, but that didn’t mean you weren’t embarrassed to show your discomfort in front of him. 

 

On the bright side, usually Eridan was an expert on filling the awkward silences with his own voice, and his voice to you was the vocal equivalent of a warm, cozy coon during the rainy seasons. 

 

Still, with him doing all the talking,  _ you _ weren’t exactly wooing  _ him _ , right?

 

His voice was all you heard as you two walked around some abandoned hallway in the meteor, keeping true to your promise about catching up. He was going on right now about something he and Vriska had alchemized a few days ago, some kind of movie he adored to bits and thought was “fintastic,” but you had kind of gotten distracted. 

 

Distracted, mainly, by his face. 

 

He had a very nice face to look at. By seadweller standards, his facial fins weren’t impressive, but they were a vibrant violet and they were always moving, so you were pretty entranced, even if you had similar fins yourself. His skin was a healthy grey, and his cheek bone structures were literally perfect. His whole face was perfect. Especially his eyes, very sparkly, even shielded by his glasses, and you knew that when the violet came into his irises when he got older, he’d be even more attractive when he already was. And his smile must have been enchanted, because even looking at how it lit his whole face up made you turn to mush, pure flushed mush. And the  _ dimples.  _

 

Gosh, he was just so…  _ so perfect _ . 

 

There was that urge that told you that maybe instead of flirting with him, you should just kiss him now, in private, because you weren’t so sure anymore that you could flat out tell him your feelings. 

 

“Fef?”

 

You blinked, pulled out of your thoughts by your name. He was looking at you now. Looking at you looking at him. You immediately snap your head forward, hoping that it didn’t look like you were ogling him. You mean, you  _ had  _ been ogling his face, but he didn’t need to know that. 

 

“Fef?” Eridan repeated, quirking an eyebrow. “You hear me?”

 

“Hm?” is the best thing you can think to say. 

 

Eridan giggles (oh, you have been blessed with the sound) and says, “Did you hear what I asked you?”

 

For a second, you think about lying and telling him that duh you were, you were just thinking about an answer, but with the way he was smiling at you, you don’t think you could’ve even found that kind of effort. “Um, no. Missed it.”

 

He laughs again. “Want me to repeat it?”

 

“Um… yeah. Sure. Go for it.”

 

Eridan looks down, then forward when he asks you. 

 

“Do you miss Alternia?”

 

You blink.

 

He seems to have seen that blink, because he goes a little flushed in his cheeks. “I know, I know, it de _ fin _ itely wasn't an ideal home. But, it  _ was  _ home. If that makes any sense.”

 

It did, in its own weird way. You nod to show you're still listening.

 

“I don't miss the drones. I don't miss the constant threats a death, for sure,” he giggled at that, “but there are things I do miss. The ocean. The sand. The breeze.”

 

He let his claws skitter on the wall as you walked, lost in memory. “I miss the sunset. I miss swimming in that little tidal pool near the cliff drops. I miss being able to run that whole stretch a sand dunes without hitting a dead end for hours.” His paces get slower and his voice gets more passionate as he goes on. “I miss the other seadwellers, the ones that would sneak us seaweed wraps every so often. I miss the trolls on the jungle divide, the ones that would tell stories at night and would pretend they didn't see us listening in.” A pause. “I miss Whaledad. I miss his protection, the pod he traveled ‘round with. I miss him lulling me to sleep. Remember that, Fef? He'd get you to sleep too.” 

 

You nod. 

 

Eventually he stops walking all together, and you just stop and stand at his side, staring at him as he traces shapes onto the metal wall of the hallway.

 

“I miss…” he thinks aloud, “I miss  _ normality. _ I miss  _ knowing _ what dangers we were facing. I miss being able to….” He chokes on the words with a soft intake of breath, wavery and small, and oh, if that didn't make a spike of pity shoot down your posture column. Here, alone, talking about the planet you'd lived on all your life, he looked… smaller. The happy, outgoing, peace maker the whole meteor knew looked breakable here, like you could reach out and he'd shatter at your frondtips. That's what you wanted to do, was to reach out, to try and chase away the pain of losing his homeland to the stupid game you'd made out of boredom. You wanted to show him that you understood, you cared, you would never want him to feel anything but the happiness he felt always.

 

He finally continues. “I miss being able to chose how to  _ go. _ That kind a, impending, always looming Ascension… least I knew where my line would end. Seadwellers aren’t  _ too _ prized above… slavery… and such… ”

 

You really are looking at him now. You’d never heard these thoughts before. His oculars were glued to the wall now, not meeting your gaze. 

 

“And I know that your fate on Alternia would’ve been even worse,” Eridan whimpered, “I know that any and all mutant bloods are culled on sight. I know that harboring you or even being found knowing of your existence would’ve gotten me culled too. But… but I miss  _ knowing that.  _ Out here, even though it’s all gorgeous and mysterious and unexplored… it’s scary, Fef. It’s scary not knowing anymore.”

 

You’re speechless. Silence, heavy and solid, settles in. The whir of the generators don’t reach this far down into the meteor, apparently. You don’t know what to say. You’ve never been good at comforting anyone. You’ve never been good at comfort, period. Not without coming off as some sort of quadrant, and you don’t want to do that. Not like this. 

 

You came out here to get his flushed, but instead you were faced with his thoughts. As much as you wanted him, you didn’t think you could deal with the damn thoughts. 

 

“I…” you start, but to your surprise, his hand comes up and covers your mouth. 

“Heh,” he puffs out a small breath of a laugh, “you don’t gotta say anything.” 

 

He looks at you and oh, you are gonna be a pile of pity at the end of this. 

 

There are translucent violet tear tracks down his face, interrupting his unflawed cheeks, and his oculars are huge and glassy underneath his glasses. He still smiles though. He still has a sad, almost mocking smile, one that you want to smush in your hands so you can kiss it. 

 

He studies you without removing his hand. “I know you, Fef, and I know you feel like you’re bad at consoling. You’re not, but I’ll respect your opinion. You’re just…” he sniffs, “you’re just real good at listening, and at not mentioning the lack a my puns, and… you’re a lot of good things, Fef. I want you to know that.”

 

Holy cuttlefish, your pusher was going to explode at this rate. You must look like a fuschia baked pastry right now, you’re so blushy. Everything feels hot. His words make you want to make out with him right there. 

 

“Um, thanks,” is the most eloquent thing you can think to say. What else can you say? C’mon, Feferi, you have to put something else into this. Um… 

 

You hold your arms out and shrug your shoulders in a sorry gesture for a hug. 

 

Shit. You are blowing this out into open seas, aren’t you?

 

Luckily for you, Eridan must have found your attempt sorry enough to laugh about it. He stares at you before just cracking down, first a few little huffs of air, then a steady trickle of giggles, then a full on “ha”, then he was practically suffocating on his own laughter. 

 

It was one of the most beautiful things you’ve ever seen. 

 

You’re about to put your arms down, defeated, but he barrels you in a hug before you can, drawing out an “oof” from you too. As all seadwellers are, he’s very cold. But you are too, maybe colder, so to you, he feels warm and cozy, like how Vriska or Terezi feels. His arms wrap around you and pull you as close as possible, and you’ve never felt better because  _ he’s right there  _ and he smells like salt and tears and a million things and all you want is to call him yours. But you won’t think about that right now, because as it is, he’s in your arms and you’re hugging him. So he’s technically yours for the moment, right?

 

“Thank you, Fef,” he says into your aural clot, “you’re the bestest friend I’ve ever had.”

 

You feel yourself light up. You’re definitely his friend-- his best friend, not just one from wrigglerhood. We’re getting  _ somewhere.  _

 

About then is when your pan actually decides to form words without your say so. 

 

“I don’t think what you said was, um, ridiculous, by the way,” you stutter out, “I think what you said was perfectly, perfectly understandable.”

 

He nods, wiping his cheeks, “Thank you. Glad I wasn’t just spewing gibberish-- or, gibber _ fish.” _

 

You frown. “Could have gone without the puns, though.”

 

He laughs again, that golden sound, and you consider that another point won for you, another point lost for Sollux. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure how I feel about this one, but I was hankering for Erifef fluff, so this came out. Honestly, live for healthy friendships, because I just get all the butterflies writing about it??? What cutie beans!  
> Anyways, next chapter is not gonna be friendly, just a warning. 
> 
> Feel free to critique/comment!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed! Have a great day!


	6. Fist Full Of A Color This Close to Resembling Pitch, But We'll Let Them Figure That Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little gift before school kicks back up! Sorry this took so long, too— it was a bit hard to write and a complete pain to edit.  
> Hope you all enjoy!
> 
> Please heed the tags, as this will contain some violence.

Your name is EQUIUS ZAHHAK, and once you had trailed the last of your fellow trolls to the respiteblocks, you headed to the generator blocks with your sleeves rolled back and your crossbow safely stowed in your strife specibus.

 

You won't lie, you'd been looking forward to this little fight. You'd been fidgety all day. Even Kanaya, who is the least attentive troll ever, gave you a look. 

 

And Nepeta wasn't making it better. She stole looks at you in the main lab that made you want to coat your hands in her blood and smear that ugly green all over her ugly face. Her smirk made you boil. You wanted to rip it off and shred it into tiny pieces and force her to swallow it, then regurgitate it, then swallow it again.

 

Needless to say, you were more than ready to fight her when the first of you began to leave for the ‘coon.

 

And now, knowing that everyone had gone off for the night, you were ready to kick some kitten ass.

 

You get to the generator block and stop when you come to the middle of the room. The whir of the generators sent vibrations through the floor, giving you a nice thrum to track with your feet as you walked. You were more than used to the silence that had permeated your life-- following vibrations wasn't hard for you anymore. Your issue with your deafness was now more of a “do I make a deaf joke or not” kind of thing. 

 

It was far from easy still-- you misread lips all the time and it can be frustrating to not hear conversations that don't include you (you missed eavesdropping)-- but you made do. And on the brighter side, you had a better feel on your other senses now, like hearing and feeling things everyone else can't. It’s super funny, especially when you get to dodge something that no one else saw coming. 

 

You've basically made your disability your bitch.

 

Which comes in handy, for example, right now, when you feel Nepeta sneak up behind you before she pounces.

 

You whip around and equip your crossbow, blocking her claws with the wooden body of your bow. 

 

You grin. This is what you've been waiting for. “Hey, kitty kitty.”

 

You can practically hear the growl coming from her lips. Which is funny, because you’re deaf.

 

“We aren't starting this all fucking official?” You say, pushing her claws to the side with minimal resistance, “Thought that after the whole ‘hey you wanna fucking go lemme ask you if you wanna go’ thing, we would have started in the middle and bowed and then started bashing each other in.”

 

“How is it that it's not even been a  _ minute  _ and you're already this unbearable?” Nepeta says, stepping back and withdrawing her claws, for now.

 

“Talent,” you answer her, leaving your crossbow equipped.

 

She rolls her ocular orbs to the point where you think they might fall out of her head. “You are insufferable.”

 

“I try.”

 

“I thought it was  _ talent.” _

 

“I try to be talented, it just works.”

 

Her anger is splayed all over her face. “I'm so done with your attitude. Let's do this.”

 

You smirk. “I'm done with you in general. Let's go.”

 

This time, you get to see her crouch and then leap at you, claws out again and gleaming with malice. You easily side step away, letting her land on one foot where you once stood. She uses the momentum to launch at you again, and you just side step like you did before. It turns into a sorry cycle of her just leaping at you and you dodging her attempts. 

 

It's fun.

 

At one point, though, you decide to spice it up a bit. When she leaps at you this time, you duck underneath her and tumble, coming up behind her, quickly fitting a bow into the crossbow latch. She spins to find you, but by then you have the arrow tip aimed at her ankle and your finger on the trigger.

 

She yelps as it releases and lodges itself firmly in the top of her foot, green blood splattering nice and pretty all around. She doubles over a bit, staring at the arrow in her skin, and then raises her head to scowl at you.

 

You shrug. “What? Is something… a _ foot _ ?”

 

This just makes her angrier. 

 

You watch as she curls her fronds around the arrow shaft and yanks, tugging it clean from her foot. More blood poured from the wound. She places the arrow in between her fangs and clamps down, snapping it in half. Both halves fall to the floor.

 

Ugh, that's a waste of a perfectly good arrow!

 

Anger apparently made Nepeta smarter in the ring, because the fight becomes a little harder. She starts going for certain parts of you instead of just trying to maul your entire being-- she aims for your trigger pulling arm, your legs, even your neck. You start having to use your crossbow a bit as well, managing to put another arrow in and swinging the tip at her like a dagger. You manage to land a few scratches on her, but you have to admit, she landed a lot more on you. Your shoulder looks like a scratching post, and the side of your shirt is becoming speckled in indigo blue blood. She put more of her weight on her not injured foot, though, which gives you an advantage of moving a hell of a lot faster than her.

 

But she knows your main weakness, unfortunately. And it's just as you’re about to shoot your next arrow that she decides to exploit it. 

 

You are not physically strong.

 

As your finger closes on the trigger, aimed at her one of her knees now, she springs forward and instead of clawing your arm to shreds, takes your wrist. And  _ grips. _

 

You hiss as she rips your bow from your hands without much effort. 

 

Her smug look tells all, and now you know you're going to have to think quick and smart to get out of this. If you don't--

 

Her hand shoots up and forward, bringing your wrist with it. You don't hear the  _ snap,  _ but you definitely feel it, and the pain the followed.

 

You grunt as she breaks the bone in your wrist, and then hiss as she has a hay day with it by cracking it the opposite way. Your other hand tries to pry hers away on instinct, but even with all your muscles working at full strength, you can't make hers budge. You squint at her as you watch her smile and laugh at your attempt, her chest heaving.

 

She takes your arm and tanks and you can  _ really  _ feel how the bones in your shoulder shift and come out of place. You're thrown forward as she twists your arm behind you, forcing a shout from your lungs. Her better foot kicks at your legs to send you sprawling to your knees.

 

Bitch.

 

But it's not like you don't have your own tricks up your sleeve. While she sat pretty as a highblood serving Karkat, you fought almost daily against hungry wild lusii in the jungle while trying to find trolls to feed Horsedad. You know how to get out of a pinch, even with your disability and being weak as hell. You doubt Nepeta knows how to get out of a circular block of she tried.

 

As she leans forward, probably to put more pressure on your dislocated shoulder, you throw your head back.

 

Could you have had the STRENGTH to knock her back?  _ No.  _ But what you  _ did  _ have was a pointy horn. A very pointy horn.

 

She howls with pain as you scratch her face, and she loses her grip on you. You immediately roll away, and make for your crossbow. Just there. Almost there…

 

You feel the vibrations of a raging scream in the floor before you feel her on you.

 

She rolls you over and before you can process, she's throwing punches at your face, not even bothering with her claws. You see where you got her with a horn-- there's a long, ugly line of green underneath her right ocular. You got her good too. It might scar.

 

You smile at that as she keeps punching you.

 

You try to block what she throws, but one arm is in a lot of pain and the other is just plain weak, so you can't block a lot. She goes for your oculars, your chin, anywhere she can hit, and you hate to admit it but she  _ can hit.  _ It feels like fireworks are exploding everywhere she punches, and you are starting to get annoyed because you aren't doing anything to stop it.

 

You don't even think you can, not until she uppercuts you enough that your head goes back til you can see your crossbow, just within reach. If you can push over just a bit…

 

Eh, fuck it. You ground your feet and push, throwing Nepeta off guard a bit from mashing your face in, and you think  _ hell yes  _ when your fronds close around the crossbow handle. With all your might, you bring it up and bash it into Nepeta's head. It stuns her enough to let you roll beneath her and away.

 

“ _ You…” _ she growls.

 

“You, what,” you wheeze out, “you, creep? You, asshole? You… you, little, huh, fucker? You've said, them all, sweet pumpbiscuit, get creative.”

 

She moves again, but her wince is visible. Her ocular vision trails down to her foot, which hasn't stopped bleeding yet.

 

“Yikes,” you say, breath finally coming back to you. “Looks like that hurts.”

 

“Looks like your face,” she sneers, “which looks equally as bad.”

 

“Hm,” you nod, “that's more like it. ‘Your face looks like my fucking bleeding foot’-- how much more damn creative can you  _ get?” _

 

She growls and makes to jump at you again, claws out, points drilling for your chest. You bring up your bow up and press the trigger for real this time, seeing the arrow wizz towards her head, and for a glorious, beautiful moment, you are in the element of thrill. 

 

It’s a matter of time now. 

 

It’s either your arrow burrows itself in her head, or she pins you through the chest. 

 

One of you is going to die. 

 

The rush is  _ amazing.  _

 

And then there are footsteps, vibrations heavy through the floor, distracting both of you. 

 

Nepeta falters and fall like the dunce of a bitch she is, her claws missing you and your arrow flying over her head and lodging in some unknown space in the wall. The footsteps are coming closer, and it could just be you, but you are pretty sure that those are running footsteps.

 

Nepeta exchanges a pained glance with you. It was weird, you know, but you wanted to keep this little scuffle a secret-- something burned inside you that was so abnormally strange, and it said that this was all personal. Just you and Nepeta needed to know about this. She felt the same way, you could tell-- Nepeta wasn’t good at a lot of things, but she was the queen of the resting bitch face, so it was easy to tell when she was feeling bored or out of her think pan mad. And right now she looked hella nervous. Like she didn't want anyone knowing about this duel. That this was between her and you.

 

And wow, that was both exhilarating and  _ hot. _

 

“Do this again?” You breathe out.

 

She squints at you. “Soon.”

 

You leave the generator block so quickly, you doubt that whoever those footsteps belonged to even knew you were there. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to critique/comment!
> 
> Thank you for reading, have a nice day!


	7. Blame Plan GO

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guess who isn't dead and just bogged down by the the start of the year, family stuff, and a weird case of writers block?
> 
> MEEEEEEE!
> 
> GUESS WHO IS PUMPED TO GET HIVESWAP?!
> 
> MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!
> 
> Jokes aside, I am sorry this chapter took so long. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

Your name is SOLLUX CAPTOR, and Feferi is being ridiculous. You don't usually like thinking so negatively, but right now you really have to. She is being completely ridiculous. 

 

You'd tell that to her to her face, but you are a little afraid of her reaction, and Eridan’s, so.

 

You reread the memo in front of you, maybe rereading it all and rereading what Feferi said would desensitize your anger.

 

centeredTorturer has begun the memo EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING IS STUPID

 

CT: D-> Ok

CT: D-> Has anyone else fucking heard Feferi's weird as fuck plan

AG: No?? What is it??

CC: Fuck off, --Equius.

CT: D-> Oh no please

CT: D-> Educate every fucking body on this ingenuity

AC: /// why do i have an awful feeling about this.

AT: oH, i fEEL GREAT ABOUT THIS! i aM MORE THAN CONFIDENT IN fEFERI’S ABILITIES AT SUCCESSFUL PLANS. dO ENTERTAIN!!!!

CC: You too. You and ---Equius, both of you fuck off.

CT: D-> No

AT: mAKE ME~~~~!

CC: Fuck. You.

CA: you can shell us, fef!

CA: no judge zone

AT: aH, aND WITH HIS WORDS, sHE IS FORCED TO SPEAK.

CT: D-> True

CC: Shut uuuuuup.

CC: What if I don't wanna tell?

CA: you don't gotta

AG: We won't like be against you if you do say stuff though!!

AC: /// oh my gosh, just spill it, peixes, save us all the damaged think pan assembly parts.

CC: …

CC: … fine.

CA:  _ fin _

CC: Fin, whatever.

CC: I think that I know what to blame for screwing up our session.

CA: ??

TA: screw1ng up our sess1on?

CT: D-> Wait it gets so much fucking better

CC: Do you  _ want  _ me to continue?

AG: Please!! I'm curious!!

AA: well?

CC: I think it was a group of human kids who played some variant of our Sgrub session. Our age, but they don't use sweeps to count it, so.

CC: And I think we should exact vengeance.

 

This is the ridiculous part.

 

GC: 3X4CT V3NG34NC3?

GC: H0W

CC: Trolling them. Divert their attention, annoy the fuck out of them until they can't take it anymore. Mess up their focus for  _ their  _ session, you know?

AT: mAKE THEM PAY.

CC: Yeah. It's a pretty good plan, if someone would just try it.

CT: D-> Ouch I feel fucking accused

CT: D-> Also I am entitled to my own fucking opinion thank you very much

CT: D-> So

CT: D-> Can we get a fucking consensus on this plan

CA: wwhale its a good plan in theory!

CA: just me personally, im eel bad at um 

CA: trollin 

CA: i guess?

CT: D-> Have you ever tried it

CA: no

CA: but i already knoww im gonna be bad at it!

CA: you all wwould be boatfuls moor skilled

AG: I don't think that!!

CA: thanks angelfish :)

CT: D-> Get a pile 

AA: it s0unds dumb 

AA: ann0ying them just t0 get back at them?

AA: it s0unds lame

CC: You're lame.

AA: y0u’re lame

CC: You're lame.

GC: 0K, 0K

GC: W3 G3T 1T

GC: T0 4DDR3SS TH3 T0P1C

GC: TH3 PL4N S0UNDS STR4NG3 T0 B3 H0N3ST

GC: BUT M4YB3 W3 C4N TRY 1T?

CC:  _ Thank  _ you, Terezi.

GC: Y3P

CT: D-> Get a room

AT: hA!

AT: i pERSONALLY SAY THAT fEFERI’S PLAN IS INTRIGUING, bUT STILL SUCKS!!!! 

AT: aND MY OPINION IS FINAL FACT, sO.

TC: That is the most false thing I’ve ever heard. 

TC: Your opinion is the final hoax.

TC: How exactly do we plan to troll them?

CC: Our Trollians, we can view their timelines and pick a place to troll them through.

CT: D-> The stupidness gets so much fucking better

CT: D-> Its a steady incline

AG: I don't know.. Would annoying them be like…. Mean??

CC: They fucking messed up our session! We have the right to be mean to them!

AA: it's unpr0ductive is the thing

AA: if we want t0 get them back f0r ruining 0ur sessi0n then we sh0ud kill them

CC: What would that do? That would be the easy way out.

AT: iT WOULD TECHNICALLY BE EASIER ON US, tHOUGH.

CC: What is it with you guys and fucking MURD-----ER?!

CT: D-> Your plan is a fucking wriggler plan

CT: D-> I have to agree with the Megido and Nitram numbskulls, killing them is a good fucking shot of we’re talking revenge

GC: 1 D1S4GR33

CT: D-> Wow thanks Pyrope

TC: Living through pain is the worst punishment.

TC: I don’t think killing them does anything.

TC: I also think annoying them is strange.

AT: mAYBE YOU'RE THE STRANGE ONE????

TC: Perhaps you are the dumbest of us all?

AA: fuck y0u b0th

CT: D-> Or fuck each other whichever comes first

CG: THIS IS WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN 

CG: FEFERIS IDEA IS IN THEORY THE STUPIDEST IDEA IN EXISTENCE

CG: THE ENTIRE THING IS FARFETCHED

CG: BUT IF THESE HUMANS ARE REALLY TO BLAME, THEN I DONT SEE WHY WE CAN'T AT LEAST CONTACT THEM

CG: IT MIGHT BE GOOD TO FOLLOW THEIR SESSION AND SEE WHERE THEY MESS UP OR WHERE THEY SUCCEED

CG: WE DID CREATE THEIR UNIVERSE BASICALLY, RIGHT? SO WE HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO DO SOMETHING LIKE TALK TO THEM

CG: YEAH?

 

Even in a Trollian chat, Karkat knew how to shut everyone up.

 

AA: um

AA: 0k

AT: wHATEVER.

TA: yeah

AC: /// this is all so fucking stupid.

GC: 0K

AG: Sounds…. Good??

CT: D-> Pft

TC: Do not “pft” him, what he says is the truth.

CC: Are we being serious right now?

CA:  _ sea _ rious 

CC: ----Eridan, come on.

CA: sorry it wwas temptin!

CG: IF WE ALL AGREE THEN GOOD

CG: FEFERI YOU KNOW HOW TO OPERATE THE TIMELINES FOR THESE KIDS AND HOW TO CONTACT THEM

CG: TEACH EVERYONE ELSE

CG: AND WE CAN GET SOME ANSWERS

CG: BYE EVERYONE SEE YOU AROUND THE METEOR

 

cruciallyGraphic has left the chatroom

 

And that had been that.

 

You can't believe Feferi, bringing up this ridiculous plan and then subtly going against  _ Karkat  _ of all people. She had guts. Lots of guts. You weren't complaining though-- her attitude towards Eridan might have set her back a bit with him. Maybe you should go hang out with him and see if you can gain some more romantic status with him.

 

Karkat’s words spin around in your head.  _ Get rid of the competition.  _

 

Your eyes flicker to one of your weights, one that you used to use back on planet to exercise but it got light after a while so you moved up a weight. You don't know why you realchemized it. But looking at it now, if you brought it down on somebody hard enough…

 

_ Get rid of the competition. _

 

Eridan would be yours.

 

You aren't a great friend of Karkat’s, but you see no harm in taking his advice.

 

~

 

adventTerror has started trolling centeredTorturer 

AT: yOU’RE GONNA TROLL THOSE HUMANS, aRENT YOU.

CT: D-> Hell yeah I am

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully I will be able to pin a good writing/editing/posting schedule soon. Hopefully all the ideas in my head will spur me on, though. If you guys want to see anything next, do tell! I am open to suggestions. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, have a greta day! :)


	8. A Small Discussion Between The Weird Deaf Rebel Alien and The Little Red-clad Human And We Totally Don't Know His Name

You are EQUIUS ZAHHAK, and talking to people has never been so much fun ever.

 

Once you bugged Feferi enough to get you set up, you had started bugging one of the humans, one of the guys. And he was amusingly stupid, it made you laugh.

 

centeredTorturer has started trolling teeteringGentry

 

CT: D-> Hey long time no fucking communication

TG: hi! yeah it's been a while

TG: a day actually

CT: D-> Such a relief to know you're alive still

TG: would I not be

CT: D-> You never know

CT: D-> Well you never do anyway

CT: D-> I do because I'm your fucking god and I can see everything that happens to you 

CT: D-> Almost

TG: ha! yeah so I've been told

TG: how is everything?

CT: D-> Daw he's a fucking gentleman

CT: D-> Just as hellish as before

CT: D-> I can see you and your friends are just fucking swell

CT: D-> You and that Jade girl gonna fucking tongue it up yet

TG: what?

CT:  D-> Are you and that Jade bitch gonna make out soon

TG: agh why would I? no jade is my friend

TG: and she is not a b****!

CT: D-> Female

CT: D-> Wants your ass

CT: D-> Sounds bitchy

CT: D-> And omg you're the cutest look at you you put little stars into the bad words daaaaaaaw

CT: D-> You are my official favorite

TG: why is blocking the word out bad? my dad says that saying those kinds of words is bad

CT: D-> My dad this

CT: D-> My dad that 

CT: D-> What the fuck even is a dad

TG: :(

TG: you don't know what a dad is?

CT: D-> No

CT: D-> Sounds like a moirail tbh

TG: a what?

CT: D-> Moirail

CT: D-> Please tell me you know what a fucking moirail is

TG: no?

TG: is that a food

CT: D-> Fuck no

CT: D-> A moirail is a pale quadrant partner who you don't fuck you just pap and shoosh them when you get all fucking feisty

TG: what is a quadrant

CT: D-> Omfg a romantic quadrant?

TG: what is a romantic quadrant?

CT: D-> Wow

CT: D-> Yikes

CT: D-> This is really fucking sad

CT: D->I mean like I'm sexy free and single but like I know what a quadrant is

CT: D-> The fuck kind of love-or-fuck system do you know

TG: um well

TG: um

TG: hold on give me a minute

TG: i don't know how to explain this

TG: are you talking about like

CT: D-> “Talking about like” what

TG: like a kind of

TG: the birds and bees talk?

CT: D-> The what and the what talk

TG: you know, birds and bees? ha, this is so awkward, im so sorry

CT: D-> Wait are those like

CT: D-> Oh my fuck are you talking about the featherbeast and flutterbug talk

TG: um is that like about 

TG: um

TG: ah, geez, this is weird im sorry!

TG: like…

TG: sex?

CT: D-> Sex

TG: …did I peg this wrong? im so sorry if i made you uncomfortable

CT: D-> Fuck that do you mean pailing

TG: pailing? 

CT: D-> Well when two people love each other very much and get kinda antsy when the big scary drones come to take their buckets

TG: wait what?

CT: D-> Do you even know how your kind fucking reproduces

TG: yeah

TG: i mean

TG: yeah

TG: this is the weirdest conversation!

CT: D-> Does your kind fucking reproduce with a bucket

TG: what?

TG: no

CT: D-> Then how the fuck do you reproduce

TG: um

CT: D->Do you assholes have drones to collect the pail once you and your partner are done and have a full bucket of

TG: no!

TG: stop please I don't wanna hear anymore

TG: we don't 

TG: no drones and no buckets

TG: just um

TG: two people and optional safety

CT: D-> The fuck kind of safety is it if its not a bucket

TG: um

TG: dude this is weird

TG: how are you so nonchalant about this?

CT: D-> Because it's fucking normal

CT: D-> Gotta fuck if you wanna continue the posterity you know

TG: eeeww

TG: this is so weird

CT: D-> You gonna run to tell your dad about it

TG: probably actually

TG: he might know how to explain this to y

TG: wait

TG: i thought you didn't know what a dad was!

CT: D-> The fuck you mean are you calling me uncaring about your culture

CT: D-> Fuck you Dave you suck

CT: D-> I take time to learn about what the fuck a dad is and this is how you treat me

CT: D-> How dare you

 

centeredTorturer has stopped treacherousGentry 

 

You are the best at trolling.

 

It is you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is not only short, but it took so long to get up online. I've been really busy with a whole new year, and I haven't been able to actually hop online in a good while. This chapter was actually written and edited on the go, so I'm sorry if it's quality is also awful? AH, I'M SORRY, THIS GETS BETTER I PROMISE!
> 
> I have the next chapter planned, and then it's gonna start to get… exceptionally troublesome.
> 
> Feel free to comment/critique!
> 
> Thank you for reading, have a great day! :)


	9. A Chat Between Mr. I'm-The-Best and Mrs. Clueless And Mean

Your name is TAVROS NITRAM, and you have to admit, you like trolling this girl. She and Vriska are two polar opposites, but were equally as stupid and fun to mess with.

 

The fact that this human girl was also pretty nice to look at was a bonus.

 

You watch her on the screen as she tip toes through her hive. The imps and the consorts and all the little things the game sprinkled in at the beginning were already there, but she seemed clueless above killing off the enemies for grist.

 

Sigh. Why was being perfect and smart so hard?

 

You guess you'll help her.

 

adventTerror has started trolling glaringGrangerism

 

AT: jADE, jADE, jADE.

AT: jADE.

AT: pLEASE STOP PLUNGING MY IMPRESSION OF YOUR RACE INTO COMPLETE OBLIVION.

AT: wHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING?

GG: um

GG: killing these things?

GG: that's what you're supposed to do in the game

AT: nO, iTS NOT.

AT: oH MY GOG, yOU ARE SO STUPID!!!! 

AT: wHO IS YOUR SERVER PLAYER

GG: server player

AT: yES.

GG: um

GG: what is that again

AT: tHE HUMAN DISGRACE THAT IS GONNA HELP YOU GET INTO THE MEDIUM.

GG: medium?

AT: oH MY-- tHE MEDIUM!!!! yOU NEED THE MEDIUM TO GET TO YOUR PLANET TO PLAY THE GAME.

AT: aND DESTROY YOUR ENTIRE PLANET’s POPULUS, bUT THAT IS A GIVEN.

GG: what?

GG: the planets populus?

AT: dO YOU EVEN KNOW THE NAME OF THE GAME YOU'RE PLAYING?

GG: sburb!

AT: wE GOT SOMEWHERE. wHAT A MIRACLE.

GG: oh, shut up!

GG: so what, i don't know what i’m doing. at least i am actually getting it done.

AT: aRE YOU DOING ANYTHING FOR YOUR CLIENT PLAYER?

GG: my what?

AT: hOW ARE YOU PLAYING THIS GAME????

GG: i just am, deal with it

AT: wHO ARE YOU SETTING STUFF UP FOR

GG: stuff?

GG: machines?

GG: you mean like who's been bugging me for machines and stuff?

AT: yES!!!!

GG: oh, john.

GG: but he's being a pain in the ass about it

AT: hOW SO????

GG: just won't stop pestering me about it. like i get it, you want a fucking alchemizer or whatever, lemme get my own shit done first and then i'll deal with you! damn.

AT: yIKES, sOMEONE GOT BITCHY REAL QUICK.

GG: ugh, stop!

AT: aDMIT IT, yOU LOVE ME.

GG: no!

AT: aNYWAYS, yOU ARE FAILING AT THIS GAME.

AT: tHE POINT IS TO ACT AS BOTH SERVER AND CLIENT PLAYER AT THE SAME. tIME.

AT: iN YOUR LANGUAGE, tHAT MEANS DOING YOUR SHIT, wHILE ALSO HELPING YOUR ASSIGNED CLIENT WITH THEIR SHIT.

GG: …

GG: oh.

AT: yEAH, “oH.” 

AT: i aM SO AMUSED THAT YOU LITERALLY ARE EVEN PLAYING THIS GAME.

AT: yOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING!

GG: you are so bad at flirting.

 

What?

 

AT: wHAT? fLIRTING?

AT: wHAT DO YOU MEAN FLIRTING?

AT: aRE YOU TELLING ME YOU GET COLORED IN THE FACE WHEN YOU GET REPRIMANDED?

GG: not at all. i’m saying that you aren't very subtle.

GG: from what dave and john have told me, your weird alien troll race thinks we are the submissive race and you are the superior ones. they have been talking to you damn trolls and saying that you guys think you are so much better than us.

GG: so why don't you think the same way? why are you helping me? why are you even acknowledging i did something right?

AT: dID I ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS ONCE IN THIS WHOLE CONVERSATION?

GG: yes!

AT: hUH, tHAT'S FUNNY, bECAUSE YOU DON’T HAVE ANY ACCOMPLISHMENTS THAT I CAN SEE. yOU ARE LITERALLY RUNNING AROUND LIKE A SELF-ABSORBED LUNATIC DOING WHATEVER YOUR LITTLE PUSHER SO DESIRES, aND SORRY SWEETNESS, bUT THAT DOESN’T COUNT AS AN ACCOMPLISHMENT.

GG: why do you care? 

AT: i dON’T IT’S JUST SAD THAT YOU ARE FLOUNDERING AROUND LIKE A DAMN SEADWELLER WITH NO CLUE WHAT YOU’RE DOING! yOU SHOULD BE THANKING ME, i cOULD LET YOU RUN IN CYLINDRICAL LOOPS UP AND DOWN YOUR SORRY LAND, bUT NO, i’M HERE, BEING THE GUIDING LUSUS’S PAW THAT WILL INEVITABLY LEAD YOU TO VICTORY. 

GG: i don’t need whatever a lusus’s paw is. i need you to shut the fuck up, is what i need. 

AT: mAYBE YOU SHOULD BE THE ONE SHUTTING UP!

GG: me? you!

AT: yOU!

GG: you!

AT: yOU!

GG: you!

AT: yOU KNOW WHAT? i dON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS. i hOPE AN IMP CATCHES YOU AND KILLS YOU SLOWLY, aND ALL YOUR SLUDGY HIGH CLASS BLOOD COMES POURING OUT OF YOU IN DROVES.

GG: same goes to you!

GG: ugh, why do i even bother? you’re just...

GG: so...

GG: fucking...


	10. Please Save These Two

TT: Nice!

TT: I’m glad we got to talk like this, you’re really sweet. You make this land seem warmer. 

CA: DAAAAAWW THANKS

CA: forget aboat me bein swweet there’s you ovvoar there all sugarcoatin like a sugargrub

TT: Those are the sweet little candy things, right?

CA: yeah! you got it

TT: Yay, I’m getting it!

TT: One day, I’ll like, assimilate into your race and be all smooth and troll-like and stuff. It’ll be great. 

CA: you tryna mako undercovver plans to spy on my race?

CA: *gasp* vvillainy

TT: Ha! Yeah, I’m going to creep up on you so unexpectedly…

CA: *gasp again*

TT: And when you least expect it….

CA: *suspense*

TT: I’m going to…

CA: *shivverin ovvoar here*

TT: … hug you into submission!

CA: THE HORROR

TT: You will be powerless! You will have to tell me everything about your most light-hearted television shows and give me all your worst alien junk food snacks or else the husktop gets it!

TT: Did I get it? Husktop?

CA: yeah!

CA: sorry im not as smart as you wwhat is a televvison again?

TT: Oh! Whoops, sorry. It’s the big wire box where we watch all our shows and movies. You pop and the disk in and stuff… 

CA: oh, like a port screen! jeez you got one a those?

TT: Yeah! Mom even got me one to put in my room, long time ago. It’s still there. 

CA: oh howw nice

CA: your mom is your guardian right

TT: Yeah! If we ever meet, and this game ever ends, I’ll let you meet her. I bet she’d find you interesting. 

CA: wwhat’s she like

TT: Tall, perfect posture, really business like, hair in a bun, never smiles… 

TT: She sounds kinda mean when I describe her out loud, but she’s actually the best. I love her a lot!

CA: daaaaaww thats so swweet

TT: Oh please, she’s my mom! I’m supposed to love her and say she’s the best. She gets me stuff too, so how can I complain?

CA: may i ask somefin

TT: Go ahead!

CA: so your mom can get you wwhatevver you wwant wwithout restriction?

TT: Well like, when the human race was still a thing? Yeah… if my behavior warranted it and stuff. And we had the budget. And it wasn’t like drugs or anything. 

CA: hm

TT: Why’d you ask?

CA: just some startlin cultural difference is all

CA: i cant imagine just

CA: havvin somefin you wwanted based on currency or possession

CA: that sounds so nice an free

TT: Wait, did your planet not have money and stuff? Did you like, all starve or something?

CA: heavvens no that’d be cruelty on a whole neww levvel

CA: but… 

CA: wwhale i doubt youre entirely wwrong actually

TT: Whooooooooooooooooooa, waaaaaait, what?

CA: i mean i wwas lucky back on alternia to havve assets like wwhaledad an fef an vvriska lookin out for me

CA: but there wwere probably trolls my exact age an blood color wwho had moor awwful fates

CA: i just

CA: whale

CA: i wwish they had that freedom like you do

CA: is all

CA: sorry gettin wwave off topic and emotional on top a that ha

TT: No, don’t be sorry!

TT: I know I don't have as good of an understanding as your do about the troll race, but that sounds terrible. Did trolls like you really starve?

CA: probubbley 

CA: its in the caste description eely

TT: Caste?

CA: did i nevver mention that

CA: geez wwait im sorry you must be all shells a confused right noww

CA: the caste system dictates me as a lowwblood cause my blood is vviolet

CA: the highest caste for us is red so if you havve red blood you're royalty

TT: :0 Cool!

CA: yeah

CA: an the higher castes like 

CA: um 

CA: luxury i guess is the wword 

CA: an us lowwbloods get wwhatevver we can find basically an yknoww wwhatevver the higher castes send at us

TT: Send at you?

CA: yeah

CA: like i said i wwas lucky

CA: other seadwwellers such as myself usually find ourshellvves on the end a some imperial drones swwing or moby you get lucky and get impaled on a highbloods weapon

TT: WAIT WHAT?

CA: yeah

CA: so i could nevver get a tvv like you

TT: tvv? did i get that right?

TT: Yeah, nice!

TT: But wait, what? Higher castes  _ kill  _ you guys? Why?

CA: that's just the wwavve the castes are i guess ivve nevver questioned it until recently

TT: Recently?

CA: your freedoms sound amazin is all :)

TT: Oh.

TT: Thanks, I guess.

CA: anenome time 

TT: :D

CA: alright ill leavve you to it you got a wwhole planet to tend to huh 

CA: sea you soon rose!

TT: Bye Eridan! Have fun on your rock or whatever! :)

 

twitchyTelepathy has stopped pestering cordialAmnesty!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to critique/comment!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, have a great day! :)


	11. Problem #1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO I AM NOT DEAD!

Your name is SOLLUX CAPTOR, and you are starting to get a little frustrated. 

 

Just a little. 

 

You shuffle your feet as you walk down the hall. You hadn’t been able to talk to Eridan lately, and you don’t know why, exactly. You’ve been busy with Aradia a lot, she kept bugging you, and it wasn’t like anyone was going to stop her constant nagging on your everything. And you’ve been trying to keep up your routine, the one you had on Alternia. Exercise and all that is easier alone in your respiteblock, and it is kind of time consuming to try and properly alchemize or cook the foods with all the right nutrients. And even in your freetime when you do go try and see him, it doesn’t look like he’s ever any more free than you. He’s always with somebody. Vriska, or Gamzee, or Kanaya, or Equius, or  _ Feferi,  _ even her name makes you feel disgusting. Eridan was never the lonesome troll. He’d invite you over, duh, he’s Eridan, that’s what he does is invite everyone to everything, but the thing is, you want him  _ alone.  _

 

Karkat’s words have become a permanent fixture in your head. 

 

Get rid of your competition. Well, let’s be real, who really posed a threat to stealing what you wanted from Eridan? Vriska, yes, but she was in his pale quadrant. So not a huge problem. 

 

Feferi, though. She was a problem. 

 

How would you do it? Would you really cull her like Karkat was talking about before? He seemed so carefree about the whole ordeal. How could he be so carefree? Hurting someone like that made your skin crawl. It’d be messy, if you did it well enough. And haunting. Wouldn’t their final expression follow you around in your pan for days?

 

But lately, after that thought, you’d put it into the context of Feferi. And the fear dissipates. Would killing her be messy? Yes, but that would answer an age old question: you had no idea what her blood color was. She was definitely lower on the spectrum (clearly a seadweller), but what shade of purple? And why did she hide it all the time? Would her final expression haunt you all that much?

 

No, your pan concludes. Not really. It’d actually be kind of satisfying. 

 

You are then snapped out of your reverie when you walk headfirst into Aradia, who seemed pretty lost in thought herself. 

 

“OW--” you yelp, falling back and landing hard on your posture column. She gives a similar shout, except with some less than tasteful language. 

 

“What the hell, Sollux? Idiot,” she hisses, smoothing out her dress skirts as she stands herself right back up. She stands over you and watches you stagger up with a minimal amount of tripping. She sighs, “Can you not look forward? At all?”

 

“I was,” you reply, “I was just thinking. Sorry.”

 

“Didn’t know you were capable of that,” she sniffed, arms crossing over her chest, “The whole thinking thing. And yeah, I know you were a little lost in thought.”

 

“How did you know?”

 

“Your lookstalks were starting to tint red when I saw you coming down the hall. So I bumped into you to snap you out of it, since I am the perfect friend.”

 

Red?

 

“Wait, wait, my lookstalks were starting to turn red?”

 

“I was looking for you, actually,” she continues, ignoring you completely. “Good thing I bumped into you when I did. Now follow me.”

 

Wait wait wait, no way was she just brushing this aside. “Wait, Aradia, my lookstalks turned red. What does that mean? Is that--”

 

“Just follow me, lowblood,” she tossed her hair over one shoulder and turned away from you to start walking. 

 

“I’m not technically a lowblood,” you say under your breath, but of course she doesn’t give you a response, so you decide to just humor her and follow her down the halls. Maybe if you bug her enough in return, she’ll actually answer you. Yeah! Positivity. 

 

She leads you into one of the labs that branch from the main one, and she goes over to this strange looking object on the side. It’s small and plain, but once it’s in her hands, you can see that small and plain does not equal not menacing. The top of it has a disc with a little knob coming out, and something about it sets you off the wrong way inside. 

 

“I’ll make this quick,” Aradia stalks over to you and shoves the object in your hands. “Do you know what this is?”

 

“...no?” You hesitantly answer, keeping the object a good distance away from you. 

 

“It’s a ray gun,” she answers like it’s not giving her bad vibes, “to put it in words you will actually understand, you press that little lever thingy, right there-- no, right  _ there,  _ yeah-- and it shoots lots of little rays that will blow things up.”

 

“And you are giving it to me… why?”

 

“Because you have absolutely no way to defend yourself.”

 

Defend yourself? “Against what?”

 

“Sollux,” Aradia gives out, crossing the block and sitting down in one of the chairs, “We are on a rock full of trolls. Our entire culture is based on killing each other. You have to learn to defend yourself--and me-- if you want to live.”

“Hey!” You frown at her, “who said anything about protecting you?”

 

“You saved me once from a cave, you’ll do it again.”

 

“What makes you so sure?”

 

“Because,” and she smirks at you, so smug, “you’re so scared of what other people think. If even me, who you don’t entirely like, thinks you’re not perfect, healthy, clean, friendly, positive, not a flaw to his name Sollux Captor? You can’t take that. So you will.”

 

You stare at her. You want to scream and kick at her and tell her that isn’t true, and that she’s lying through her fangs. But she isn’t. You’re too scared to defy her. 

 

“So I just saved you, basically, so you’re welcome. You can practice with your new shooter blaster thing that does ten times what any other measly strife specibus you’ve ever had could do. I’m going to go do actual useful things now. So bye.”

 

And she’s gone.

 

You stare down at your… blaster? Ray gun blaster? Maybe you should test it. There is a great chance Aradia is just pulling your walkstub with this, and it actually will blow up in your face once you pull the trigger. Still, you go down to a block that looks unoccupied and aim for the wall. 

 

One second later, there is a large hole in said wall. 

 

Whoa. 

 

You stare at the little knob at the mouth of the gun, where smoke is now seeping out and disappearing in little wisps. The hole in the wall is pretty sizable. This little gun, so small, but it does so much… like Eridan, really. Such a small, weak lowblood, but he does so much for you and everyone else. Like this weapon, he makes you feel powerful. Like you could do anything if you just tried… right?

 

You captchalogue the gun and walk away, Karkat’s words louder than they have ever been in your pan, telling you that now you had the most surefire way of dealing with your competition. 

 

And maybe you could blast her to so many small bits, it would take care of the messy part. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the official start of a bunch of problems that will totally not escalate and snowball into something really… messy.
> 
> Please feel free to critique/comment! 
> 
> Have a great day!


	12. Problem #2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWO UPDATES TWO DAYS IN A ROW?!?!? SORCERY???!?!?!?!?!?!?

The first thing you do when you wake up is punch him in the face. 

 

What can you say? You, TEREZI PYROPE, were a little scared and a little panicky when you opened your oculars and found yourself in an unfamiliar room with a figure looming over you with something in their hands. 

 

You may have overreacted a little. You’ll cut yourself some slack there. You can’t be the calm and collected criminal all the time. 

 

It took you a second to realize that the person you had just punched was actually Gamzee, and this must be his room judging by the fact that it’s so clean, and he was now stepping back and holding his face. 

 

“Oh, sorry, sorry,” you sputter, reaching one hand in his direction, “I didn’t know it was you, sorry, I panicked.”

 

He nods and slowly takes his hand away. A pang of guilt, there was a bit of color where you had punched him, right around his jaw. You see what he was holding now, a cloth stained with a bit of teal. 

 

Wait, teal?

 

You look away from him and down at yourself. Your arms seem normal, but when you look down at your torso… .

 

You whip your head back up at Gamzee, confusion and concern pooling in the pit of your nutritional sac. “Gamzee,” you whisper, “what…?”

 

He looks up at you, his fronds ghosting his bruise one more time before letting it drop. He drops his gaze and then slowly, carefully, he comes back and sits in the sitting device near the recuperacoon you are in. You don’t get an answer. The ice in his ganderbulbs makes you not want to push. You eventually don’t have to. 

 

“It’s stitched,” he says, his voice rigid rock on a cliff-face, “so you shouldn’t worry too much. Cleaning it, though, should be a top priority, to prevent infection.”

 

“... but… I don’t--”

 

“It looked worse before. I thought the cut went halfway around your waist, but luckily, it doesn’t go fully around. Not too deep, either. Any deeper and I’d have to take you to Eridan or Aradia, and they’d want an explanation.”

 

You look away from him, one hand keeping your torn shirt up to look down at your wound. “But... how did I…?”

 

Gamzee doesn’t respond again, and just lightly slaps your hand away from your wound the way you think a lusus would their ward if they were trying to get the last sugargrub from the package. He continues to clean it, and you hiss at the sting. It really burns. It doesn’t take too long to get it fully clean of your blood, but to you, it felt like sweeps. 

 

He is still quiet when he takes the rag and goes to a bowl on his desk and dunks it in, starting to scrub it. You peek down again. The cut curves around your hip and ends just above your hipbone, and you’re guessing it curves a little further around your posture column. The stitches are well done, in your opinion. Neat and orderly. They zig zag through your flesh. Anyone else would not have had the fascination you do about something like stitches, but in your past as a thief, you knew your way around wounds and how to sew them up, and were a little curious at how others did it compared to your own ways. In fact, in your wigglerhood, there was a lot you failed at and a lot you were good at, but you were proud of seeing when you needed to use some serious medical stuff and when you didn’t. Of course, there were things you also weren’t so great at seeing, like Kar--

 

You blanch. 

 

“Gamzee,” you say. He looks over, letting the almost clean rag slip into the water bowl. 

 

“Gamzee,” you repeat, “I… did I get this--” you point down at your cut, “did… did I get this from… from… Karkat? Did Karkat do this to me?”

 

Gamzee stares at you. He slowly nods. 

 

You have never seen a dam break. You’ve heard of them, huge massive structures that blocked up water and kept seadwellers from crossing into a lot of the higher class areas. You’ve heard that sometimes the walls of the dam give in to pressure, and they crumble, and whole subgrubs are underwater in just a few hours. You’ve never seen it happen. But you definitely now know how it feels to break like that. In seconds, you are sobbing, uncontrolled, and a part of you wants to stop while the other wants to let everything out. It is you, you are the dam break. You are crying, crying, crying, and soon you will drown. 

 

Suddenly, something cold wraps around you. 

 

You startle, one more sob wretching itself from your word gaper, and you look up to see that Gamzee is now at the edge of your recuperacoon, arms around you, hugging you like you were glass. Your pan does a quick spiral. You didn’t know he was capable of hugging anyone. You thought he was the monster that ripped Tavros a new eye and leg, the one with the creepy pan powers, the one exactly not to get close to, like you were now. But he wasn’t hurting you. In fact, if anything, you kind of wanted him closer, because it felt so nice to pretend like someone knew and cared about your turmoils. 

 

You allow him to hold you and you sob a bit more before he speaks.

 

He doesn’t actually speak, no. But what he does do is more than words could ever do. He pulls away from you. You resist the urge to ask him to hug you again, because it felt that friendly. He rolls up his sleeve up to his shoulder. 

 

One large scar. It goes all the way up from the middle of his forearm to his shoulder. It’s shape, you realize, looks a lot like yours. 

 

From a scythe. It all clicks. He has a scar from a scythe, just like your own wound will be. 

 

Karkat’s scythe. 

 

Karkat has sliced you both with that thing. His two quadrantmates. He’s purposefully  _ sliced you both.  _

 

It’s a whole conversation, just that one action. Gamzee knows you understand what he’s showing you. And somehow, you know he does. It’s an action full of  _ I know, and I’m not saying that just to say it, I’m saying it because I’ve been through it too. _ Every word. You hear every word, even if the block is silent. 

 

It makes sense then. Gamzee is the one you’ve heard call Karkat “sir” before. He’s the one that has been by Karkat’s side since day one. He would know. Of course he’d know. How didn’t you think of this before?

 

He and you stare at each other before you speak. 

 

“Thank you,” is all you manage. 

 

Gamzee shakes his head. 

 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, you barely catch his words, “I’m sorry. I swore I’d be the only one. I didn’t want anyone else to--” he can’t say the rest. “I’m sorry. I should have warned you before you two became officially flush.”

 

Silence. 

 

“Do you… you still pity him, right?” You ask, voice trembling.

 

“Yes, I do. Isn't that terrible?” he answers.

 

“No, that’s… I do too. I still do too.”

 

“... I know. Isn’t it annoying?”

 

You can’t hold back the snicker. “Yeah, it kind of is.”

 

“I… I feel like I’m getting suffocated when he laughs. He makes me doubly pale for him when he laughs.”

 

You nod in agreement. “His laugh is kind of like… like, remember Alternian sunsets?”

 

“Who doesn’t?”

 

“Those,” you find yourself smiling as you sniffle, “his laughter is like those. Even after he…” you stumble on your words. “... after he… you know.”

 

Gamzee nods. “I know,” he whispers, “I know, I know exactly what you are talking about.”

 

Again, a full conversation, but no words are passed between you. You just look at each other. In his eyes, you see a lot of things, things that Tavros and Equius don’t mention when trash talking this “psycho-witch”. You see pain. You see concern. You see uncertainty. You see fear.

 

You both move at the same time. His arms around you, careful of your wound, and you being careful as you scooch yourself out of the sopor a bit--everyone knows by now that Gamzee isn’t the biggest fan of sopor slime, and the fact that he even let you sleep and heal in some speaks volumes. 

 

You both hold each other, a million conversations in the air, but never said. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, I'll admit it: when I first read Homestuck, Gamrezi was the relationship that gave me the most feels because of how awful it was in that perspective. I love to feel the feels even if I end up crying in the corner for years because of them, ha! Anyways, to turn this ship into an Oppositestuck pair was what prompted me to write any of this down in the first place. Yeah, in canon it's super unhealthy, but it was a dynamic I had NO IDEA was coming and added more to Karat's development and was just really clever plot point?? To me?? And it was fun to turn on it's head?? So yeah, that's why I feel like this chapter came to me easier than others. Hope it doesn't turn ugly. 
> 
> Thank you for reading my rant!
> 
> Also a quick disclaimer: I know that parts of this paint these two characters differently than how other abusive relationships play out. This is not an accurate representation of all abuse victims. Every story is different, and these are fictional characters with stories of their own. This is a fictional plot, and these characters aren't even really mine, so please remember that this is not how all abusive relationships work. If there are any glaring inaccuracies or offensive anythings in my writing when writing that kind of relation, PLEASE TELL ME! 
> 
> Alright, final rant done, thank you guys. <3
> 
> Please feel free to critique/comment!
> 
> Thank you again for reading, have a great day! :)


	13. A Spoonful of Doom Makes It All Go Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH BOY!

You are FEFERI PEIXES, and you are totally normally hanging out with Eridan in the main lab when he comes.

 

You all had made a collective pile in the middle of the lab. It was made of a bunch of really ugly fabrics that Kanaya had randomly alchemized. Yeah, they looked like someone had puked up all over some cloth and called it clothing fabric, but they were soft enough, so you used it. It wasn't a pile like you'd have if you were moirails, those things were more personal. It was more of a public place to just hang around. 

 

And you and Eridan were using it for just that purpose: to hang out. Terezi and Vriska used it like that. Karkat and Nepeta used it like that. There was no romance in a public pile. You were literally just enjoying being with Eridan. At that moment, you had no ulterior motives to get into Eridan’s flushed quadrant. You were just enjoying all that was Eridan Ampora. And there was a lot to enjoy.

 

And then Sollux Captor walked in. Looking right at you.

 

Eridan had just been reminding you about the first time you had taught him to swim and he had found his first lost grub to take care of, even though you remembered everything he was telling you. Totally normal. And then when Sollux walked in, Eridan finished his last sentence and turned towards him, normal smile on his face, and a greeting on his lips. Sollux just stared. Stared at you and Eridan. 

 

Something here was fishy. 

 

Very fishy. 

 

“You took him from me.”

 

What?

 

“What?” you ask, pushing yourself up from the pile, Eridan still sitting there now looking very confused. 

 

“You took him from me,” Sollux hissed, stepping forward, “look, you took him already. Who do you think you are?”

 

“Wait, what? Took who from who? What's going on?” Eridan asked, sitting up from where he had been lounging on the pile. “I don't understand.”

 

Oh, Eridan didn't, but you did. Did he  _ want _ Eridan to know you both were flush crushing on him? “No I haven't,” you say, a familiar spark of anger flaming in your nutrition sac, “stop being a douche.”

 

“I'm not the douche, you are,” he is starting to get louder with every word now, “you are. You are. You… you both were in a  _ pile _ . And since he already has a moirail, what else could you be?”

 

Eridan look back and forth between the two of you before bursting out into nervous giggles. “Oh, Sol,” he managed, “no, it's not like that! We were just hangin’ out. Eely. Don't need to make assumptions!” 

 

The words would have hurt you more in any other circumstance, but you were a bit more focused on Sollux’s twitching hands than anything else. Something here was wrong.

 

“Sollux,” you warn, standing from the pile with less grace than you wanted. You don't add much after that. You used the tone that said to back off. He should know.

 

Apparently, he didn't, because you blink and in his hand is a thing that doesn't look friendly. It looks very gun-like. Much like a gun.

 

You hear Eridan shift uncomfortably behind you before you hear him stand behind you.

 

“You,” Sollux breathes, stepping forward with arms shaking in pure fury, “ _ you… _ ”

 

Eridan practically in front of you. “Wait,” he gives out, “wait, I’m so confused. What is this? Water you doing? Why do you seem mad?”

 

Sollux ignores him, ganderbulbs only focused on you and you alone. Since you were a wiggler, you had heard stories about highblood rage, but you'd never seen one happen up close. You watch Sollux’s irises dilate, the yellow around it going redder and redder. His teeth are showing while he breathes, faster with every passing second. By now, almost every part of him his shaking with anger. And now you have a choice. Highblood rage was not something to mess with. This stupid piece of yellowblood trash might just cull you if you let him. “Let him” being the key words. If you didn't do something, he might really hurt you. He might reveal your  _ blood color. _ Or worse, he could hurt Eridan, no matter how much he pities him, there was a chance he could. And Sollux didn't have a damn moirail to calm him. You had to  _ do something. _

 

You decaptchalogue your trident and hold it firmly in your fronds. “Back off, Captor.”

 

Your pusher wobbles with Eridan's tiny gasp of surprise, and even more with the sounds of him backing up a little.

 

“No,” Sollux breathes, bringing his arms up to point the gun at you and Eridan. “ _ You  _ back off. Get away from him.  _ Get away. _ ”

 

You give a small war cry and rush forward at the same time he pulls the trigger. 

 

You narrowly dodge whatever came out of his gun, pulling Eridan with you. You hear a blast behind you, and you  _ really  _ don't want to know what came out of that gun. You practically throw your wigglerhood friend across the block before turning on Sollux. You waste no time lunging at him, trident tines forward. 

 

He blocks you with his gun using a speed you didn't know the idiot had. You hardly have a second of reprieve before he bashes the gun handle against your thinknub.  _ Ow?!  _ You lose your balance, fall on your ass, and have to blink a few times before you can process that Sollux has the gun pointed at your again. You roll away just in time, the blast almost shredding almost through the floor.

 

What in the remaining universe  _ is  _ that gun?

 

You re-equip your trident from where it had slipped onto the floor after your fall. You try to take a jab at him, but you miss, and he sidesteps enough to come around and hit you with the gun handle again. You grunt with pain, but this time you don't fall, you just stumble. It's enough, though for him to take aim again, and you see your whole life flash before your poor mutant ganderbulbs as he starts to pull the trigger and--

 

A beam of pure white light cuts right in front of you both.

 

You stumble back, and a very surprised Sollux does too.

 

“ _ Stop,”  _ you hear Eridan sob from where you had basically tossed him before. “ _ Stop, stop, stop, please, stop….” _

 

You feel a screw getting twisted into your pusher as he keeps saying “stop”. You turn to see him on his knees, his singular wand in his hand, staring and begging with all the power he could muster. White mist floats up from the tip of his wand. You feel bile on your word gaper muscle. You feel like all you want to do is apologize to him and wrap him up in a thousand snuggleplanes and make sure he was ok. You wanted him to stop sounding like he was on the brink of hysteria and you wanted him to stop wiping away the violet tears that had started to drop down his cheeks. 

 

You step forward, towards him, to do everything you just said. And then you felt the heat against your back and Sollux pulled the trigger. Hard.

 

Pain shot through your body, and you screamed _ , s _ creamed like you never had before. You felt yourself get thrown back into the far wall, pain pain pain everywhere, never ending, and then slowly but surely, a darkness. Swirling, numbing you. Unconsciousness, you manage to think. You're going unconscious. 

 

Or are you dying?

 

The last thing you hear before the darkness takes over is Eridan screaming. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> Please feel free to critique/comment! (Especially critique this time around, this scene was one of those scenes that came right to me, and it may be a bit rushed and I feel like my editing powers aren't too strong as of late. But what am I? Lazy and impatient! And when do I want to post this? RIGHT NOW!)
> 
> Have a great day! :)


	14. Down Came The Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And washed the spider out…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am on a scheduling roll with this?? Really not sure why?? Or how??

Your name is VRISKA SERKET, and you have to do something. 

 

You are done being pushed around. This ends now. If Tavros really had a plan in G-mayor’s creation, what else was he planning? You knew John reasonably well at this point, and you knew that the last thing he ever did was joke around, so this wasn’t a prank or anything. This was real. And you knew you had to stop it. 

 

You are now walking down a hallway, one arm gripping your sword-- oh yeah, wouldn’t that be nice to mention? You arms? Great job, narrator. Always remembering the important stuff, huh. You’d think that your arms would be a critical part of your story, but then again, it’s not like the narrator actually ever cared about you, right? After all, you've had to go through everything you've been through, with so many flaws in your personality and in your conscious, and--

 

Ok. Now you're pushing it a bit. You don't want to come across as rude. You apologize. Moving on.

 

Yes, your arms, metal ones that were given to you by Feferi after Karkat very lovingly chopped off your arms in your sleep, with Gamzee close by in case some of your blood triggered Karkat's highblood rage instincts. They were amazing things, and you had never felt so on top of the world as you did when you papped Eridan for the first time with your own fronds. Your  _ own.  _ It almost made you feel bad that you were about to go and maybe sully your newest body additions by confronting the very cause of your paralysis.

 

You were about to face Tavros.

 

Your entire pan did a few somersaults at that.  _ Tavros. _ The carefree, confident, powerful, manipulative, sneaky, the Insane Capper that pushed you from a cliff and damaged your arms and your future, had Alternia lasted. The one who had helped to set all your issues into motion in the first place.

 

And you had to stop him.

 

You had to. You were done letting everyone else fix things and getting hurt in the process. It's your turn. Your turn to actually be useful and  _ do something. _

 

You find him in a large room with a drop off. He's in his Rogue of Breath outfit. And he's grinning at you as soon as you come through the door.

 

“Vriska,” he says, nice and sweet and ultimately fake, “hey. What brought you around here?”

 

You stare at him. 

 

“You st-started this a-all,” is the best thing you could think up. “A-all of i-it. Y-you started a-all of it.”

 

His smile looks like the Alternian moon, sending lethal frost everywhere and leaving you feeling dead from frostbite in its wake. “What an accusation! That’s a really loaded thing to say, Vrissy. What brought that around? Do tell.”

 

Your breathing tubes decide to close up a bit, but you force yourself to swallow. Ignore. His words cut you, but that’s not why you’re here. You are not here to let him push you around anymore, no puns intended towards him actually pushing you off a cliff. 

 

“I,” you start, then have to stop because your breathing tubes are not cooperating and you had to focus on breathing for a minute before continuing. “I, uh, f-fou-ound some st-stuff out. F-From John.”

 

“John,” Tavros hums, “John human-John? Alien John? John that Feferi despises, right?”

 

“Th-that o-one, yeah.”

 

“Oh,” he laughs, harsh, jagged, “Oh, Vriska, you make me laugh. What in the wide expanse of paradox space does John know, hm? What makes you trust him at all?”

 

Your pan makes you say the first thing you think. “I-I can tr-rust him, a lot m-more than I c-can you.”

 

His gaze hardens, for just the slightest of seconds, before relaxing back into his cocky expression, and you doubt you have ever been more terrified in your life ever. He leans into one hip. “And why is that?”

 

“H-he knows a l-lot,” you respond, fronds starting to tremble in your grasp, “a-and, uh, he’s never lied t-to me before. And, uh, he’s really sm-smart.”

 

“Are you calling me dumb?”

 

“W-well, no, but you don’t, uh, speak to me, like J-John does. He, uh, doesn’t talk nicely, but then a-again, he talks to me, um, like I am a stu-st-stupid troll. And not pl-plai-lainly stupid and n-nothing.”

 

Another laugh. “You crack me up. You are so cute, you know that?”

 

Welp. That caught you off guard. “What?”

“So cute, the way you talk and babble at me like you have any self esteem at all,” he sighs, laughter reminiscent in his tone, as he shrugs. “Have you even been in your own pan all this time? Like, have you lived your life?”

 

Your breathing tubes collapse and your breathing sacs deflate as he speaks pure truth in every word. 

 

“You have, from the very start, been the inadequate one. You have never been of use in your life. You lusus was what, the size of one frondpalm? And you still couldn’t do much of anything? I heard Equius practically raised you, you were just as worthless as you are now. And after I tried to put you out of your misery, you became even worse. If Alternia had survived, if we had never gotten this far, never played this game? You would be dead, Vriska. C-U-L-L-E-D. You have absolutely no talents. You should be honored that someone as talented, handsome, and amazing as me even speaks to you. Hell, I am one of your worst enemies, you had the chance to  _ kill me _ right on my questbed, I would have been back anyways, but what did you do? You ran. Like a damn coward. The way you are speaking to me, accusing me, is uncalled for. Why? Because you have never ever ever earned that right! You are a scared, hopeless, powerless little brat, a worthless bitch, a pest! It’s laughable. Vriska, I think its cute. That you forget that you will  _ never be good enough.” _

 

Down to your last string before you lost your courage, and he uses those words. Never good enough. Never good enough, never good enough, never ever good enough. And you remember the game. 

 

You remember spending nights on LOWAA, being in Eridan’s cooling, reassuring arms, and him fighting your every insecurity like a knight fights the monsters for the princess. The way his fins would flicker in happiness when you gave in and accepted what he said about you quickly, the way his face flushed not in anger, but in well intentioned frustration when you just couldn’t accept that you were more than nothing. And he’d keep going, oh wow, would he keep going. You’re beautiful, Vris. Forget what he or she said, Vris. Look at me Vris, and tell me I can’t adore you. Tell me. 

 

If you backed down now, Tavros could do something really bad. And Eridan might not live to tell you that again. 

 

You couldn’t.

 

Let. 

 

That. 

 

Happen.

 

You inhale the air, fresh and warm in the back of your word gaper. “You’re r-right,” you tell him, and you focus. 

 

“But I can’t let you do this. I need to stop you. You won’t cause anything to happen again. I won’t let you.”

 

His ganderbulbs take on a colder hue, and that steely fear rises in your chest again. But you blink, and behind your lids, you see Eridan peering down at you, smiling, encouraging.  _ You can do this. You can do this.  _

 

You can’t, you remind yourself, as you charge at Tavros, swords raised up and ready to strike, but for your friends, for Eridan, for Terezi, this was worth it. 

 

The pain of your own sword being ripped from your hands and plunged right through your torso is all worth it. 

 

Finally. 

 

Some worth to you. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHEWF Ok, this was really emotional for me to write. I (admittedly) only edited it once, so any critiques or suggestions would help. I had them talk instead of go on Trillion for this like they do in the canon comic because I felt like it fit better, maybe?
> 
> Next chapter is going to, um… even more technicolored. 
> 
> Anyways, please feel free to critique/comment!
> 
> Have a great day, and thank you so much for reading! :)


	15. Ohmyglub

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, this updated again! YAY!
> 
> Sorry for such a long wait, I have no excuse other than I am the laziest laze to ever laze. I have no idea when I'll be able to update again, maybe tomorrow, maybe in like, six months, who knows. So thank you for being patient, I'm sorry for not being consistent, I WILL try to be better about that. Try is the key word.
> 
> Enough about me though! Enjoy some fish boy.   
> ...  
> Poor fish boy.

Ohmyglub.

 

OhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglubOhmyglub _ Ohmyglub-- _

 

Your name is ERIDAN AMPORA. And Ohmyglub.

 

Your ganderbulbs dart from Feferi’s limp body to Sollux and the steaming gun and back again in a cycle and dear glub this can't be real. Can't be happening. What happened? Why? You don't understand! Why did they fight? Why why  _ why? _

 

You can do nothing but scream. Your body has decided to just continually stare at your wigglerhood bestie, now lying in a splatter of fuschia blood, eyes closed and hand loosely gripping her trident. You couldn't see her breathing from here. Was she breathing? Was she ok?

 

What if Sollux had killed her?

What was going on?

 

Your voice is hoarse with your screams by the time you realize Sollux hasn’t done a thing since he shot Fef. He’s staring at her very oddly. Was he guilty? You would be able to understand that! What he just did was awful. Was he confused? Why would he b--

 

Fef’s blood. 

 

Oh no. 

 

Sollux hadn’t known. And he’s a higher caste. Fef’s blood is fuschia. That’s never been seen befoar in Alternian history-- whale. Not in a  _ while _ , anywave. And he sees it right now. Sollux is seeing it. 

 

You have never been so scared for one of your fronds in your life. 

 

What should you do? No… what  _ can  _ you do?

 

Being a lowblood, contrary to popular belief, has its perks. You’ve put yourself into this scenario billions of times befoar, if this happened. If one of your fronds was incapacitated, what to do, try and get them out, try and help them. So your pan acts more on instinct and training rather than slow drawn out thought processes. 

 

It’s time to run. 

 

“I--” you stammer, “I have to-- I have to go g-get help--”

 

“No,” Sollux hisses, “No, don’t. It’s ok. I… I think she’s gone now. What was she?”

 

You refuse to believe Fef was actually dead, so you ignore that. You also ignore his question. “I have to,” you choke out, grabbing your wand and standing on shaky limbs, backing out. “I… someone… someone, kelp! Kelp! Please!”

 

You scream as much as your voice will allow you to, and then you run. You book it as fast as you can. Sollux will try and chase you down, you know he will. That’s highblood instinct, to chase down the prey making the ruckus, right? Get him awave from Fef, and hope someone either finds her or she wakes up on her own and gets someplace safe to recover. Yes, perfect. She’d be ok. You know she will. 

 

_ You _ , on the other hand….

 

Losing Sollux in the halls is the best wave to avoid hurting him or him hurting you, which although you understand is all blamed on Sollux’s highblood status, is something you would prefer avoiding. So you chose zig zag hallways, you turn down corners, you go up stairs and down stairs until you have lost yourself in the maze of the meteor, looking around for someone to kelp-- well, let’s drop the puns for now, it’s kind of a serious time, isn’t it-- to help you, while also making sure you’re running fast enough to lose Sollux and also keep him on his toes. 

 

It’s a tough balance. But you aren’t  _ completely _ untalented, and you know you can keep that balance.

 

You spot a block a bit further down, with a wider entryway. A bigger block with another exit, maybe? It was worth the shot. If it was big and had another entry, you could hide and make Sollux, if he were still chasing you (you weren't about to check) think you had left the block, when you hadn't. That would be good. If the block didn't have another exit….

 

Well, you weren't hatched for a long lifespan in the first place, right?

 

You just really hoped you had helped to prolong Fef’s lifespan, at least a little bit.

 

You turn into the room and make it a few feet before skidding to a stop. There's a set of stairs off to the side, and a cliff with nothing beyond it. You creep a little closer to the edge, maybe there's a ledge you can go and hide on….

 

There's a splat behind you. It's really sudden, and you almost jump right off the edge from surprise. What was  _ that?  _ You turn around and--

 

Oh.

 

Oh cod no.

 

No.

 

No.

 

No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no.

 

_ No, heaven, please, no.  _

 

_ Not her. _

 

_ Not Vriska. _

 

Your moirail, your sweet, precious, pitiable moirail. Not her. Fef, she was strong, you knew that, she could take what came her way, the right way. She could get back up. She could fight. Vriska wasn't like that. No. No, this couldn't be real. She would have done nothing, nothing to deserve this. 

 

She had fallen in such a way that the metal arms Fef gave her had twisted in ways they weren't supposed to twist, had they been real arms. Her eyes were open, glossed over, dull, lifeless. Her lips were slightly parted, eyebrows lifted, a final expression of surprise on her facial features. Her hair billowed out beneath her, horns still intact after the fall, legs tangled in her skirt.

 

The sword was still lodged in her chest. Blood patterned the floor beneath her, a perfect cerulean hue that didn't belong on the floor.

 

You knew as soon as you took it in. She was dead. Your moirail was dead.

 

You promptly turned to the side and throw up. 

 

After that, you can’t help but turn towards her again, a choked sob rising from your throat. Fire was running through your entire body, agony ripping through your tendons, and dear glub  _ why?  _ Why  _ her?  _ She was always so sweet and kind. She never thought about herself, she only saw everyone else. She always asked questions about you before talking about herself, even when things got bad, she was the most selfless person you knew, and now… now…. 

 

_ Why _ ?

 

Even as the sadness invades your senses, you know what you have to do. You had always wanted to be a doctorturer when Alternia was still a thing, even if you knew that your caste would never allow you that far in life. You studied. You knew what to do with a body. The least you could give Vriska was a final resting place suitable enough for her. 

 

You slowly stumble over to the body, trying again not to gag. The silence was deafening. When had silence become an enemy? You carefully untangle her legs from her skirt. Her skin is colder than your own now. Tears come down your face without you really noticing as you laid her body flat. 

 

Yanking the sword from her abdomen proved to be a harder task than you thought. You throw up again once you dislodged it and flung it away where you never wanted to see it again. It was her own sword. 

 

How terrible could someone be?

 

You know for a fact this wasn’t Vriska’s own doing, no way. You know because your moirail, even with metal arms, would never have the mental capacity for something like that. She had never been dumb, as she always believed, but you also knew that she could never go through with something like that. Also, her spine was curved away instead of towards the blade entry, so that counted for something, right?

 

You take a moment to keep sobbing, because you just realized you were thinking in past tense. She was dead. You couldn’t talk about her in the present anymore because Vriska was dead. 

 

_ Who could be this horrible? _

 

It’s only when you reach to wipe a tear away that you realize your hands are covered in cerulean. Her blood. Once again, you throw up to the side. Third time is a charm. You are stuck between washing the blood off your hands as fast as possible or cherishing it, because now she’s gone and you will never see this color again, not in her blush or her lips or her eyes which were just starting to fill in just the tiniest bit and

 

Your frenzied thoughts and soft sobbing are cut short when you register footsteps behind you. 

 

Oh thank glub. 

 

“Thank goodness, someone is here, I--” You turn around while still on your knees. 

 

And your breath catches. 

 

Kanaya Maryam isn’t capable of much. Just a fact. Doesn’t mean she’s particularly unkind, heavens no, everyone can be kind, but she just… she likes the lazy side to life. That’s fine. To each troll their own. The reason why you’re thinking about this now is because you don’t ever recall her standing much. At all. But here she is, standing there, on uneven feet. 

 

You smile at her. 

 

“Kanaya! You’re standing! That’s great! I d--”

 

Your ganderbulbs are pulled downwards by a slight twitch of movement. 

 

In her hand is a broken soda bottle, the edges of the glass glistening in non-existant light. And her eyes dart from you to Vriska to your hands. 

 

Hands still covered in your own moirails blood. 

 

Kanaya lifts the bottle. 

 

“Wait,” you stutter, dread filling your pan and you scooch back, your tailbone hitting Vriska’s body and making your nutritional sac heave again. “Wait, Kanaya, this isn’t what you think--”

She gives an anguished, raging, and unmistakably drunken cry as she lifts the bottle and brings it down  _ hard _ on your head. 

 

It’s too much pain for someone of your caste’s biology to survive. 

 

The darkness comes too quickly as you topple, and your last thoughts are that you hope nothing will happen to Vriska’s body or to her soul, and you hope Feferi got out of all this alright. 

 

You hope. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every pun was painful. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> Have a great day! :)


	16. PSYCH (Kind Of)

_ You open your eyes. _

 

_ Wait, what? _

 

_ You can't open your eyes, silly! You are dead, last you remember, anyway. Kanaya had smashed your head with a broken glass with all the force of a tuskbeast charging at you full speed, because she thought you had killed Vriska though you hadn't, and now you were dead. _

 

_ Right? _

 

_ Why is your name still ERIDAN AMPORA? Why are we still reading from your perspective? Your perspective wasn't supposed to exist anymore. What was going on? _

 

_ You peek around and you realize that you are in a gorgeous golden room, waaaay out of your caste league, and the window shows an inky darkness outside.  _

 

_ You sit up, flexing your grab fronds and being so so SO grateful that you an even do that, because you were pretty convinced back there that you had just breathed your last! Clearly not, unless this was heaven, in which case you are a tad bit huffy. You had made your angel friends promise that they'd find you when you died so you all could spend eternity together.  _

 

_ Looking around, you slowly try to stand, and are delighted when you can! You feel like you can float a bit too. You jump up and close your eyes. Your feet don't find the floor again. Wow! That's so cool, you think, and attempt to propel yourself to the window to grasp the situation you now found yourself in. _

 

_ You do end up floating over to the window, and are met with complete black. Pieces of what looks like a yellow city float around the room you're in, which appears to be on a tower. Pretty pale gold trim skates around the remnants of some huge buildings. Things are drifting away from each other as they are parts of an aftermath of a blast- _

 

_ The word “blast” makes you think of Sol. You push it out of your pan. It's the last thing you want to think about. _

 

_ You decide to take a leap of faith and you jump from the window. You luckily stay suspended. You wouldn't want to fall into nothing and die again. Was double death even a thing? Maybe. Anything is possible.  _

 

_ You fly through the debris, mindlessly searching for answers. You find nothing new. More destroyed yellow buildings, more silence that felt heavy. You spot a sign, floating letters that spelled out  _ Propsit.  _ Was this a planet? You look up to see a similar scene off in the distance, but purple in color. A sister planet to this one? _

 

_ Something teal catches your eye. You turn and feel your nutritional sac try to upheave itself. _

 

_ It's Terezi, her neck slit open, her eyes open wide. Teal blood is cascading from the cut, deciding that gravity didn't exist anymore. Her limbs are splayed to the sides, and she is wearing a golden outfit similar to yours, except she is wearing a skirt instead of pants. _

 

_ You go over to her and manage to close her eyes without throwing up all over the place. She deserved that much. _

 

_ Something here isn't adding up though. This couldn't be  _

 

_ You halt in mid air when you see something reasonably intact. It's a large dome of sorts, shiny, with a small entranceway.  _

 

_ You felt drawn to it, so you do what you usually do when making a pretty irrational decision. You just do it. You don't let your dreams be dreams. You go in. _

 

_ The inside of the dome is much bigger than it looked on the outside. Long winding arches joined together at the top and then pointed downwards to a platform. _

 

_ On the platform is Vriska. _

 

_ You  _ really  _ like heaven. It's giving you everything you have ever wanted.  _

 

_ You float over. Vriska is in a much more fancy dress than the poor dead version of Terezi was, golden lace patterning the hem and sparkles on the sleeves. She looked perfect as always. You were as pale as pale could be for her, and you really hope that she knew, because-- _

 

_ Well….  _

 

_ You hope she knew that her whole life, and…. _

 

_ ….  _

 

_ Grief makes words hard.  _

 

_ You can’t help but smooth a piece of hair from her face, just enough to feel her cheek again. You’d pap her senseless some nights, sometimes to beat back her demons inside, and sometimes because they were surprisingly ticklish at times. You know she’s not breathing. You know, you can see the stillness in her chest. Your best friend, you… you…  _

 

_ What can you even do? _

 

_ You do what feels right in the moment, in this weird world in this weird life.  _

 

_ You bend down and give her a nice little pale kiss, on the lips, like you’d do sometimes when her insecurities wouldn’t yield to just words or papping or hugs or cuddles. A kiss for a princess, like Troll Sleeping Beauty. Yes, that’s what your moirail was. An amazing, lovely princess….  _

 

_ Your eyes widen when the platform she’s on starts to glow almost on the spot. The places where your hands were leaning get hot, so you pull them back and push away from Vriska. It’s a bright yellow light underneath her body as the actual body starts to lift into the air, her hair trailing behind her like a net in the water.  _

 

_ You stare, awestruck, as her clothing changes, a shining light suddenly spiraling from the platform and engulfing your moirail. It changes her yellows into a bright orange dress, with strange tights and blue shoes, a hood that parts in two and all the works of a… a… .  _

 

_ You never get to complete the thought because just as you see her open her eyes, the dome blows up along with you inside it.  _

 

_ And it’s all dark again.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments help to awaken the small writing demon inside of me!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!! I appreciate you!
> 
> Have an amazing day! :)


	17. A Spark To Start A Hellfire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a filler/lead in to the next big, hopefully really good, long, sad scene coming next/soon, I apologize.   
> I do hope you enjoy, though. :)

You stand there in the entryway and you watch her sputter into his chest, on her knees, shaking. The broken glass remnants of a bottle are scattered to the side, making it impossible to know the flavor of the drink it once held, but the violet stains on some of them made it seem like it was once a grape flavor or something. 

 

Not the point. 

 

Because she was clutching at him, at his cloak, horns leaning into him. And he was standing there, letting her cry into his clothing, and his hands were patting her back, her shoulders, gentle, reassuring.

 

You watch Karkat slowly sink down to Kanaya’s level, her hands coming up to cover her face in a wiggler-like gesture. Karkat takes her wrists and tugs them away. She looks up at him with big eyes.

 

And he

 

paps 

 

her face 

 

and your heart

 

coll

 

aps 

 

es 

 

in your 

 

chest.

 

And he smooths out her furrowed brows and he takes her face in his hands and he taps his fronds against her cheeks. He shooshes her, raising his volume every time her crying gets louder. He soothes, he quiets, he brings her down from a clearly devastating feeling and back to Kanaya’s usual, slumbering, clumsy self.

 

And Karkat 

 

presses 

 

the tiniest 

 

chastest 

 

sweetest

 

_ palest _

 

kiss

 

to the crown 

 

of

 

her head

 

and you are reeling 

 

inside

 

It hurts worse than any slap or bruise or cut your moral has ever given you, in a highblood rage or not. It hurts so much worse and

 

you want

 

to rip

 

your

 

heart

 

from your

 

body

 

to stop

 

the 

 

pain. 

 

 

Karkat leans his cheek on her forehead and looks across to you. 

 

You run. You run and you don't dare to look back.

 

Your name is GAMZEE MAKARA, and you have never felt farther from your gods than you do now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had some fun with the formatting here to try and convey emotion. I don't know if it worked, but always tell me if it could be improved! 
> 
> Comments awaken the small writing demon inside of me!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!!!
> 
> Have a great day! :)


	18. Pointing Fronds, Otherwise Known As A Fatal Mistake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOOHOO LIKE A 5 PAGE CHAPTER!!!!! 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!!

Your name is KARKAT VANTAS and you find them in the nutrition block. 

 

Equius is sitting there with his legs up on the table (rude) and is leaning back on only two of the legs of the four legged device he is sitting in (even more rude). He has a small roll of something in his mouth and is shamelessly letting green smoke drift from the tip. Nepeta is smoking something similar, and sits opposite him, with awful posture. The card game they were in the middle of seems forgotten when you walk in, as was their heated conversation. 

 

You don’t glare at Equius like you want to because if you are going to orchestrate this like you want, then you need them both to cooperate with you. And you’re smart enough to know that accusing the lowblood of stealing your spade is not going to help achieve that, as true as it is. Nepeta shouldn’t even look in his direction, you are right there and are higher than her, you deserve a rival like her! But she still looks at him like he’s the only pitch option out there, and everyone sees it but them.

 

You’ll never understand love. But you digress. 

 

“Hi, Karkat,” Nepeta greets you, taking the cigarette out from her mouth and letting a whisp of green smoke trail after it. Equius doesn’t even do that, he just leans back a little further and grins at you. 

 

You hate his teeth. His mouth is full of them. They are all very sharp and a few of them are capped in metal. He’s disgusting. 

 

“Hello, you two,” you say, putting on your best “ambassador” voice because everyone listens to your ambassador voice, “How are you?”

 

Nepeta quirks and eyebrow at you. “Fine? Why?” Equius taps his fronds on his arm in dull interest. 

 

“Can I not ask?” You say, saccharine, like the king you are destined to be. “I just saw the both of you in here and thought I’d pop on and check on you! It’s only kind.”

 

Nepeta scowls because ha, she knows the voice you’re using. She’s known you long enough. “Kind,” she mocks, the urge to smack her rising in your pan, quickly quelled, “suuure. That’s it.”

 

Equius gives a dry chuckle and nothing more besides an exaggerated inhale and a puff of smoke. 

 

What better time than now to launch your plan into action? Might as well. 

 

“Well, yes,” you say sweetly, clasping your hands in front of you, “yes, and… and something else.”

 

“What else?” Nepeta grit out, and it’s funny how easily her patience can run out. She slowly stands and goes near the garbage container, squishing the cigarette against the ice box and then throwing it away. “Come on, spit it out.” Really, only Nepeta could ever speak to you like that without real repercussions. Her and Equius because anything he says isn't worth your time. 

 

“I’m just…” you continue, rocking back and forth from your heels to your toes, “I’m… oh, this is hard to say! I’m just concerned for you two is all. If you guys need an… an auspitice, or something.”

 

That caught their attention.

 

“What?” Nepeta hisses, almost breaking the ice box she was near with the force of her grip on it’s handle. “What did you just say?”

 

“If you two needed an auspistice, is all. I just don’t want anyone hurt….”

 

“Me and  _ this asshole _ ?” She threw her arms at Equius, who just had his head turned to you in a quiet curiosity. 

 

“Yes?”

 

“Ahaha, no,” Nepeta laughed, “no, we aren’t even in any kind of relationship. Like, at all. Ew. Just… ugh, ew, no. Blech. Relationships are one kind of gross, but with  _ him _ ? Heeelllll no.”

 

Equius gives a laugh too, and finally lets something loose from his wordgaper. “Even I don’t have standards that fucking low, Vantas.”

 

You drop your innocent act and make it a point to look confused as all get out. “You two… you guys  _ aren’t  _ black for each other?”

 

“No!” Nepeta pretty much shrieks, “No no no! Gross!”

 

Equius blows out more smoke when he says, “I’m sure she’d be honored to even get that kinda level on me, but no. This bitch couldn’t step up to my pitch if she tried.”

 

“Oh I could, I just don’t want to.”

 

“All those pretty lies and nothing to even show for it.”

 

“Do you want a black look stalk?”

 

“Vantas thinks I want you black, period, so.”

 

Nepeta gives an aggravated grunt and falls back into her seat, so you continue with your story.

 

“But, I’m so confused!” You tap your cheek in thought. “Why would he lie to me? Am I doing everything right? Oh, I hope he was telling me the truth, why would he ever lie….”

 

Nepeta’s eyes turn from irritation to accusing. “... he? Who’s he?”

 

You smile. 

 

“Gamzee.”

 

Equius’s eyebrows shoot up. “Gamzee told you Kitty Bitch and I were in pitch?”

 

“Stop calling me that,” Nepeta spits, and then turns back to you. “He told you that?”

 

“I literally just fucking asked that.”

 

“Would you shut up?”

 

“Yes,” you interject, “yes he did! He said you two were pitch, and he was so worried about your safety. He knows me well, as you know, and knows I’m a good speaker, so he came to me and asked if I could ask if you two needed an ashen partner in the mix.”

 

The two exchange a look, and you can tell that Equius is trying to decipher if he was reading your lips wrong or something. Nepeta is contemplative now, and both seem to not know what to say. But you see exactly what you wanted to see boiling a little ways below the surface. 

 

You could see their anger. 

 

“Why does he think we’re pitch?” Nepeta finally asked, “did he tell you that?”

 

You make a show of thinking before you answer. “Yes, I think he did. He said he had taken a walk on one of our first days here? And he had passed a block down one of the hallways and he said he heard voices, so he went in. And he told me that he saw the two of you running off, and that there were blue and green blood stains all over the floor!” You cup your cheek. “Terrible, really.”

 

They look at each other again. There is fear in their expressions, and oh, if that isn’t delicious. 

 

“But if you two aren’t in a caliginous relationship, then I am so sorry! I can’t believe he lied!” You take a step back. “I should probably go, I have done enough damage here--”

 

“No,” Nepeta purrs, “no, no, Karkat. Wait. Don’t go just yet. I’d like to hear more about this.”

 

“I won’t hear it,” Equius adds, “but I wouldn’t mind cashing the fuck in on this conversation.”

 

You hold back the grin you want to release, and you slowly go and sit down in an unoccupied seat. 

 

“Are you the only one Gamzee has told this…  _ rumor  _ to?” Nepeta asks you. 

 

“Oh, goodness no!” You giggle, “I’m sure he’s told more than just me. We have already established that we can talk about things to other people. I’m not one of those moirails that keeps their diamond in a corral, you know?”

 

You are, actually. You have the poor heretic bowing to your every whim. But they don’t have to know that.

 

“So more people think we’re pitch?” Nepeta’s voice is venomous. A lot of people knew it because they were really obvious, but they’ll figure that out eventually. “I believe so,” you sigh, “I remember Sollux mentioning it.”

 

Now that the thought crosses your pan, you actually have no idea where Sollux even is. Hm. 

 

“I can’t believe this,” Nepeta murmurs. “That was one fight….”

 

You tap your claws against the table top before putting out a suggestion in your most timid of voices.

 

“... do you… do you think he knows other things?”

 

“Like what?” Equius asks. 

 

“Like… what else do you think he’s spreading? If this really isn’t true, and you’re both not in spades, then….” You gasp and cover your mouth. 

 

“What? Why did you gasp?” Nepeta’s nails skid into the table when she speaks. 

 

You blink, then slowly make eye contact with Nepeta and Equius, and you take your hands away from your face so Equius can see what you say. Once you feel like you have their full, undivided, floating in suspense attention, you speak, in a voice at least five octaves higher than your usual one. “Sollux!”

 

“What about Sollux?” Equius quits the whole leaning thing and brings his legs down from the table (finally) while he waits for your response. 

 

“I… oh gosh!” You whimper, “Well, see, this just came to my pan! Gamzee was hanging around in my room earlier on this trip, and… and Sollux had come in. He had asked for relationship advice about--”

 

“Eridan?” Nepeta finished your sentence for you. “Yeah, that one is about as obvious as a compact stone rectangle aimed at your facial region.”

 

“And everyone wants the fish fucker, so no surprise,” Equius added. 

 

“--yes, Eridan,” you repeat, “because he knew we might have advice! And Gamzee had… well, he had suggested….”

 

“Suggested?”

 

“... suggested he kill Feferi.”

 

While Nepeta looked surprised as you had thought, Equius’s face creased in the first sprinkling of doubt. 

 

“I mean, I would too without you having to ask, but….” Nepeta shook her head. “He really suggested that?”

 

“Yes,” you nod, “but… well now I can’t help but wonder if Sollux might take his advice seriously!”

 

You think a moment longer in the silence before you cup your face in your hands. You make sure your lips can be seen again before you say it.

 

“...I… I don’t want him to set off some cycle of death….”

 

Nepeta’s face goes from angry to furious to determined before she says what you want her to. “Then we silence him first.”

 

You snap your head up and gasp. “What?!”

 

“You heard me,” she growls at you, “if Gamzee wants to throw accusations around like that, then he’s gotta pay. And Sollux is like, the most impressionable troll in all of nonexistent Alternia! If someone told him ‘kill this person, it’d get you hot babes’, he’d probably do it!”

 

You reaaallllyyy want to laugh at that because you know the truth. But you don’t. 

 

“K-kill Gamzee, though?” You stutter out, “b-but-- w-why--”

 

“Yeah, Leijon,” Equius drawls out, putting his cigarette back into his mouth and speaking around it, “I don’t really buy that plan.”  

 

She flashed him a death glare. “If you don't buy it, fine. But I think it's necessary. He's going around clearly provoking people for some reason, and I want to let him know that he's pissing me off.”

 

“So you'll kill him?”

 

“He said that we were in a kismesissitude and you don’t wanna kill him for it?”

 

“What I’m saying,” Equius’s voice turned rough and he pulled his cigarette from his mouth again, “is that this seems very… un-Gamzee like. Isn’t his whole fucking religion about  _ torture _ , not  _ killing people?” _

 

Your “moirail’s” ridiculous heretic religion did in fact go completely against murder, which is why Tavros is only maimed at the moment and not dead. But you were smarter than the average growlbeast, so you had done some quick research on the topic on your way down here. 

 

“Oh, you’re right,” you nod at the lowblood, “but I do know that in his scriptures there is a clause that says that the organization of murder wouldn’t count unless it was necessary….”

 

Equius stares at you. “That sounds like a load of bullshit, Vantas.”

 

Nepeta looks a little skeptical now too.

 

“Maybe it is,” you sigh, curling up a little to look smaller, “I don’t know. But… well, Nepeta, you’re the most sane troll I know--”

 

Equius laughs at that. You ignore him. 

 

“--and if you think that… that k-killing him is the best option, well… well then I trust you. I know your… uh, methods. And I trust you’ll make it quick….” You sniffle and wipe your eyes. “My poor, poor little moirail. What has he gotten into…?”

 

You add a little bow on the end of your perfect story to keep Equius’s doubts at bay. “Thank you, Nepeta. I’m sure you’ll do a better j-job of doing this than anyone else could.”

 

Nepeta smirks and crosses her arms, leaning into her hip. “Naturally.”

 

Equius puffs out one last cloud of green smoke before stubbing it out on the table. “Naturally? What, naturally a killer?”

 

“Duh, he just said so. More than anyone else on this damn rock.” She sniffs and does a flip of her hair, a few strands getting thrown behind her horns. 

 

“You couldn’t do what I can.” Equius’s voice rings challenge, and it rings an ugly pitch flirt in there too. Yuck. 

 

“Can too,” Nepeta retorts with such a wiggler comeback. 

 

“Can not.”

 

“Can too.”

 

“Can not.”

 

“Can too.”

 

“Can not.”

 

“Can too.”

 

“Can not.”

 

“Can too.”

 

“Can fucking not!” Equius shoots up, but because he’s so weak, the chair only skids back a bit. He leans across the table towards Nepeta and hisses through his teeth, “you couldn’t even live up to my fucking legacy, bitch, every damn fucking fight we’ve ever had was less entertaining than an actual kill.”

 

“Then help me kill this rumor-passing bastard,” Nepeta hisses right back, getting in his face, “and maybe you can prove yourself... a little.”

 

He grimaces. “Fine.”

 

“Fine.”

 

“Fine!”

 

“Fine!”

 

You have just realized that their faces were getting closer and closer and a little bit more uncomfortably so. Maybe it’s time to go. 

 

“Well, I am sad, but I am glad this is getting settled,” you jumble your words as you stand up, carefully moving your seat back in and backing towards the door, “tell me when it’s done, alright?”

 

“Yep,” they say at the same time without moving, as if breaking eye contact with the other was going to be the death of them both. 

You walk away, and once you know you’re out of hearing or seeing range, you let loose the chuckle that had been in your throat all that time. 

 

It was a shame, really, that Gamzee had seen you and Kanaya, because you really did love having one moirail for the public eye and one that no one really knew about. But now that Gamzee had seen you and Kanaya, well-- now that simply couldn’t fly. What if he did tell someone about it? You saw him and Terezi talk all the time now, in shadows where they thought no one could hear. It was adorable, really, how they’d pull up sleeves and pant legs and once or twice even expose their torsos to each other to show the scars and bruises you gave them, well deserved scars and bruises, because being your quadrantmate was hard, and the only way to learn to serve you properly as a romantic partner was through permanent reminder! But back on topic-- as much as you would love the drama it would bring, you didn’t want your flawless reputation flawed by a cheating scandal between the last 12 trolls alive. 

 

Well, if Kanaya had told you the truth, the number of trolls now had dropped to at least 10. And now that Nepeta and Equius were angry at Gamzee for something he actually didn’t do, that number was about to drop to 9. 

 

It’s sad, you think, walking into your block to wait for Terezi to come around to visit. You think purple looks stunning on your scythe. 

 

But you think it might look prettier on the hands of your friends once they realize their fatal mistake in trusting you. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy. 
> 
> Comments awaken the small writing demon inside of me!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, have a great day! :)


	19. Hidden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Self-indulgent filler chapter?   
> Self-indulgent filler chapter.   
> Hope it's at least a lil' angsty.

“I don’t got a lot of time left.”

 

“Your grammar get worse when you’re scared.”

 

You both are tucked away in a vent. It’s the only place you know for sure Karkat can’t find you. 

 

“I know,” he whispers, “but I know he isn’t gonna just… just let me go with seeing that. I’m limited now, Rezi. I don’t got a lot of time left.”

 

The silence is deafening. 

 

“Here,” his voice comes out in a whimper, “lords, gods, please, stay safe here. I could never want you hurt.”

 

“I don’t want you hurt either,” and your voice is so soft, softer than anything you’ve ever known. 

 

“I don’t got a choice,” he sounds like he’s about to sob, “I never had a choice, I never could, I never did….”

 

What do you say to that?

 

“No,” you reassure him, reaching out for him, “we have to trust him. He’s horrible in so many ways, but he’s kept us around this long, right? He has to pity us somewhere.”

 

“Pale for me like he’s pale for her?” He spits out “her”, not with venom, but with diamond-ache. “Pities me like he pities her?”

 

You open your mouth, but no words come out. 

 

“Here is your sanctuary,” he grabs your hands and intertwines your fronds, holding them tight in an ice cool grip. “Here, in these vents, I pray, I pray to you, Terezi, please. Hide here when you most need it. If… if something happens and you need to hide, come here, where he can’t find you.”

 

“I--”

 

“Promise me. Promise me, please, promise me.”

 

He wears an old face, the face of a thousand lifetimes, just like you. In that moment, you realize just how alike the two of your are. You both are criminals, a thief and a heretic, both cowards, both horns over heels for an insane scarletblood. 

 

And you both don’t want to be alone.

 

“Don’t leave me,” you whisper when he starts to crawl away from you. 

 

He looks at you for a minute, and you think he’s going to say something else. But then there is something cold on your cheek. It takes the sound of his lips coming away from your skin to realize he kissed you there, and that the air of the vents is now turning the spot cold. 

 

“I never will,” he quietly admits. “Remember that.”

 

You don’t hesitate. You pull him right back to you and meet your forehead with his, and just for one second, you stare into each other’s souls through your eyes. Just one second. 

 

You kiss lips to lips and it feels electric. He’s cold like his blood but warm from the goodness in his pusher, and you want to applaud whoever dubbed him a “witch” way back when, because you are positive he has put a spell on you and you’re never going to get away from it. You smooth your hands over his cheeks, and he cups the back of your head like you’re glass. And it’s perfection in a way that you can’t describe. 

 

When you both pull away for that pesky thing called air, he immediately asks, “What was that?” A pause. “What are we?”

 

You grin at him, and you feel the bitterness for your redblooded prince in your throat, the one that hurt you and the one who’s kiss could never be  _ that _ .

 

“I don’t know,” you say truthfully. A million words, a million confessions, they all hang in the air like nooses, waiting for a victim. But you don’t condemn anyone, so they hang there, empty, unsaid, unheard. 

 

More silence.

 

“I’m going to miss you,” he whispers into your cheek when he leans in again.

 

You are taken back. “Stop, he won’t, I--”

 

“Come find me in the afterlife when your time comes, you promise me?”

 

“Gamzee….”

 

His lips part like he’s going to say something, but the words die on his tongue almost as soon as they come. You want to say those three words you hear sometimes between red lovers in the movies. You want to tell him what you’re just now realizing, your confusion, your feelings, your hopes. You know, deep down, he wants to say them too. 

 

But you don’t say anything. And neither does he. And like your faith in life, he is gone in an instant. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments awaken the writing demon inside of me!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> Have a great day!!! :)

**Author's Note:**

> Karkat being a GOOD leader????? WHAAAA? I need to take a step down, that's a little too opposite for me.  
> (Jk, I love Karkat, we must protect that poor boy.)  
> This was a larger chapter, but I'll make sure future ones are a bit more manageable. I cannot wait to work more on this!! 
> 
> Feel free to comment/critique!
> 
> Thank you sooo much for reading and I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
